


In Order To Possess Mere Consolations.

by amorremanet



Series: 22 Weeks Is A Long Time [2]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Body Dysphoria, Body Image, Break Up, Community: chubwinchesters, Control Issues, Depression, Dom/sub, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, EDNOS, Eating Disorders, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Fat Character, Feedism, Food Issues, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, Panic Attack, Pining, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Self-Loathing, Subspace, Suicidal Thoughts, Triggers, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, chubby!kink, fat appreciation, feederism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-03-31
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:09:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 101,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's nothing wrong with just being concerned with his appearance and his health, or so he tells himself…Sure, he can admit that he's been overdoing things a little bit, but it's just a side-effect of getting fat, in the first place… But nothing to write home about…"</p>
<p>Misha's sick — or, at least, some part of him is sick. Rationally, he knows that what he keeps feeling, how he keeps thinking, isn't even remotely close to healthy. To normal, or acceptable. But when it feels like he's losing control of his entire life, he has a comfortable obsession. A coping mechanism that's never let him down, even when it's done its best to destroy him.</p>
<p>The problem, if anyone cares to ask for his opinion, is that he's not strong enough to manage anything without it. (takes place: after "Jello Shots And Skin Mags"; in the series backstory.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Second Spring.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot takes another holiday to Narnia for some Misha character study, and an in-depth look at his backstory with Richard.

On Sunday morning, Misha wakes up and _hates himself_ for drinking as much as he did at Danneel's party. His head pounds like the Incredible Hulk's punching him in his brain, repeatedly. Well past the point where real punches would knock him the fuck out.

If only he _could_ conk out like that—some nice unconsciousness might take the edge off things. Instead, Misha blinks and winces at the sunlight glaring at him through the window. He can feel his pulse behind his eyes and, despite the nagging, nauseated feeling, he never actually throws up. Scratching at his scalp, then his palms, then his neck, he wishes that he _would_ —if he'd just upchuck and get it over with, then maybe, he wouldn't feel so much like microwaved death.

What makes him retreat further under his covers is… he doesn't actually mind the thought of puking. That he sees it as a thought and not a _threat_. He'd welcome it happening. Even worse is that he knows what this means. And worse than that is the thought processes lurking in the back of his mind as he twists and turns and tries to pretend his anywhere else. By now, he's bound to have absorbed the calories from last night—he can count them off without thinking about it, rattle off the breakdowns of carbohydrates for some of what passed his lips yesterday, and even if his body _has_ processed the calories, his fingers still itch to scratch at the back of his throat, gag himself until he hurls them all up.

Because that seems reasonable, at the moment. It seems completely reasonable, even when he knows it isn't, to think that he could get rid of calories he's already used by puking hard enough… Clear as a bell, one word comes to mind: _relapse_. …That fucking word rings and throbs against his skull. It beats a sickening tattoo on his brain, repeating itself over and over and over again: _relapse. relapse. relapse._ In practice, that's probably a polite way of saying that Misha is totally fucking fucked.

Except that—as he reminds himself, groaning in the back of his mind—he'd need to have ever been officially diagnosed with anything in the first place for this—whatever this is—to count as a relapse.

Eventually, Misha concedes defeat—there's nothing that's going to help him, apparently. Nothing save forcing himself out of his head, which he can do because it's the weekend and no one cares. Groaning the whole way, he skulks out of his room and throws a Bloody Mary together, says a quick, quiet prayer to… whatever supernatural force has decided to smile on him and have Jensen wake up later than he did. But even when Jensen wanders out into their living room, Misha keeps drinking. Beer, mostly, though he ventures into some of the liquor they have kicking around, and tells Jensen to borrow his credit card and just order pizza, because he doesn't feel like cooking.

"I feel like shit, Jensen, _that's why_ ," he whines, burrowing under one of the sofa's throw pillows. "You're a big kid now and you know what we always order. You know how much of it you have to eat and fuck it, there's some extra made-up milkshake in the fridge. Chef Misha is taking a goddamn day off, okay?"

He only peeks out to give Jensen a piteous, sad puppy face and reach for his beer. Jensen arches an eyebrow at him, sighs, and agrees without any fuss.

The hangover's long since lost its edge; Misha's just intoxicated and that sort of mindset just doesn't want to be sober, and it's all Jeff's stupid fault. Stupid fucking Jeff and his _stupid_ … Jeff-ness. Jeff and his making Misha think about all sorts of unfriendly, wormy little things. Like that his dieting hasn't worked yet, and that Misha's thinking too much about his weight, and that this just means that he's in more of a fucked up place than he's realized until now—not that realizing it makes him feel any better. He doesn't _want_ to have that realization. He doesn't want to think about it, or about whether or not he can actually relapse, if the only diagnoses he's ever gotten were from Richard and Mark.

If all of this is going to kick around in his brain-case, then fuck it, Misha _deserves_ to bury himself in alcohol until he doesn't care anymore. While he zones out to a marathon of Star Trek and Disney movies, trying to force the memories back (and soundly failing), the _last_ thing Misha wants to be is _sober_.

 

Their story wasn't a fairy tale, not by a long shot, but Misha always likes thinking about it that way. The first few parts of it could've led right into a happily-ever-after, except that kind of hope was unreasonable and stupid and probably part of the reason Misha wound up making things fall apart. (Not the only reason, he knows—but as he curls up for a Sunday of completely irresponsible behavior, he doesn't want to think about the other ones. The other ones are messy.)

Once upon a time, Misha and Richard were just friends of mutual friends—in their case, Shepp and Vicki. And the rest of the Queer Voices Coalition, to some degree—Misha noticed Richard at meetings, even while he was still dating Shepp. At first, Richard was the other guy who hung out in the corners while everyone else talked and contributed. Misha liked him without knowing who he was for that part alone. Playing it safe in social situations seemed a rarity among the QVC crowd, and they got to be quiet together.

Until something changed toward the end of freshman year and Richard started talking at club meetings, revealing more than just his charming, Southern drawl—Tennessee, rather than the Texas one Misha had gotten used to in living with Jensen. Richard had an interest in karaoke parties and costume design. He was on the Theatre BA's acting track, but had an interest in playwriting as well. He had three siblings and told terrible jokes. Everything he said made Misha want to get to know him, and at the same time, the fuzzy pink feeling he got in his chest around Richard made him want to stay as far away from him as possible.

Apparently, Misha gave Richard such a powerful set of mooning, lovesick puppy eyes in the first three meetings of their sophomore year that, by the end of the fourth, Shepp just had to introduce them. By his standards, anyway, which most people would've deemed invasive and meddling… but Misha's opinion didn't get to count, this time.

The first thing out of Richard's mouth, past the names business and the introductions, was: "I hope you won't be insulted if I've been checking out your ass since last semester. It's not like… I mean. I don't intend to be shallow or anything, it's just… You've got a _great_ ass."

Misha flushed a hot, sick, demeaning shade of pink and mumbled that he didn't mind. At Shepp elbowing him in the ribs, he sighed and added, "…uh. Thank you. I guess? …I'm a runner?"

Things got better when Misha tried to beg off on some made-up appointment and Richard called him on the blatant lie by grabbing his ass. It cleared up the awkwardness. At least, it managed this by getting all of the bullshit out of the way and giving Misha plenty of excuse to be as obnoxious as he felt like being. Shepp grinned like a fat cat in a canary cage—which only got worse when he heard the report of their first date from Jensen instead of Misha. Because Jensen wandered back into his and Misha's dormitory during the second hour of the most epic make-out session of Misha's life, ever, before or since.

 

Once upon a time, Misha and Richard had two more dates—and the third one didn't end at the door of Misha and Jensen's dormitory, or with Jensen wandering in, mid-make-out-session. It didn't have to, not with Misha having the room to himself for the weekend. Jensen's and Danneel's parents came to visit for Friends And Family Weekend (or at least, they came for the excuse to see Jen and Danneel, then drag them around on adventures that had nothing to do with their school's plans).

So, the Cousins Ackles hopped a train into the city, and Misha dragged Richard into his room by the sleeve of his leather jacket, let Richard shove him down to the mattress, clawed his way to sitting up only to flop into the wall behind his bed.

He barely even noticed that smacking into the wall hurt. _Slam_ —the soft, crunching sound that came as his hair rustled against the stone, or plaster, the fiberglass or whatever the Hell the college used to build its dormitories. He felt his skull and the wall digging at each other. A twinge, about as hard as a kitten's claws or a static shock. But, aside from that, Misha gave up his attention, his ability to understand and process much of anything. All for the hurricane between his lips and Richard's. That onslaught of kisses. Lips alternately grating and crushing on each other. Teeth clashing as they both tried to vie for the right to bite each other.

The odd bite that landed on a tongues. Or the stray attempt at kissing that wound up on cheeks or temples instead of on mouths. That got derailed by how the grinding of their hips—the focus Misha put into bucking up against Richard. The casual, easy way that Richard rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck in the middle of all of this. Didn't even smirk or get that glint in his eyes as he thrust back against Misha—like trying to pin him down was the most trifling concern. Like he could have done a job interview over the phone right now and been cool as a cucumber, not even arouse suspicion about what they were up to. Like they were already familiar enough for Richard to just know what Misha wanted.

Misha leaned back onto the wall as though trying to burrow back and hide in it. Relied on it maybe a bit too much—but Misha wanted the support as he cleaved to Richard. He didn't want to end up horizontal until he decided he was ready. Seemed all too likely, with the way they went at each other and how he kept dragging Richard back when he tried to pull back from their current round of making out. Of kissing like most people, in Misha's view, only dreamed they could kiss. Only hoped they could get kissed, even just once, to know what it was like.

And the weird thing wasn't even the crop of thoughts that wandered in and out of Misha's mind. Wasn't how strangely right it all felt, grabbing Richard's hips by the belt-loops on his jeans. Wasn't how Misha kissed him harder than anybody he'd ever kissed, biting and sucking and grinding his lips against Richard's like sandpaper, struggling to best Richard in the unannounced contest for dominance. Wasn't even how knotting his fingers up in Richard's hair made Misha wonder if this was the best kind of revenge he could get on everyone who made him miserable in high school—not only was he attending a better school than most of them did (and doing better than he thought they could ever manage), but he was thin, good looking, and (probably) about to fuck a gorgeous guy.

The weird thing was how much Misha _needed_ Richard—how he wanted to get taken care of, how he wanted _Richard_ to be the guy to look after him. How (despite these facts) he didn't want to just accept that care because he wanted Richard to think of him as some pathetic little boy who'd take and take and never give. How he wasn't sure he really wanted to fuck Richard, just because he'd only topped with Shepp a few times, but Misha sure as Hell wanted to _try_ , just so Richard knew that Misha wouldn't let him down.

The weird thing was that, as it turned out, Misha. How he just assumed that Richard was one of those lucky bastards who could eat whatever the fuck he wanted and not gain weight. How he just assumed Richard's body was anything but how it looked clothed (which was to say: short, sure, but fairly compact all around; maybe not _slender_ , but decidedly not any kind of pudgy), and how, even before Richard ripped off his shirt and pinned him to the mattress, Misha hadn't even considered trying to indulge his kink with his new possibly-boyfriend-but-they-weren't-official-yet. He would've been fine with Richard staying as is—fuck, Richard could've wanted to get on a diet and Misha would've been okay—

But then he had Richard topless and straddling his pelvis, and his thighs felt softer than Misha would've guessed, and when Misha sat up, got his hands on Richard's hips (definitely an easier task than Misha reckoned for—he found plenty on Richard to grab hold of, even what felt like beginner's love handles), when he dragged their bodies flush against each other so they could go back to kissing properly, that's when he felt it. The biggest difference from the impression that Richard's body gave off while clothed—and the best one Misha could've asked for, the one he never would've dreamt of finding—an adorably chubby little belly.

"Little" and "chubby" being the operative words—it wasn't even hardly a belly, as far as Misha could tell, and it certainly wasn't "fat." It was a good start, though. A bit of paunch. A soft swell of pudge sticking out around Richard's waistline. Round and bulging and so imminently squeezable—Misha pinched at it, found a roll of fat in his fingers, but that paled in comparison to grinding up against the whole expanse of Richard's starter-belly. Knocking around and smashing into that warm, gentle flesh. Just feeling Richard's tummy rub up on his own slim middle got Misha harder than anything else Richard had done to him until now (than anything else Misha had ever tried, even with Mark, who was so much bigger)…

It sent a shiver up his spine and gave him the shock of energy to kick up, flip them over, and end up on top. He stretched out to full length along Richard, tangling their legs up because it seemed that might alleviate the problem of Misha being a good three inches taller, and as he leaned down to kiss Richard like sucking poison out of a wound, as he kept thrusting his hips at Richard's and bucked their stomachs together with force enough to chafe, Misha kept a hand on Richard's hip. Like the little bit of flab there would disappear if Misha gave it any opportunity.

For as long as that lasted, anyway. Their jeans and Misha's shirt came off, wound up thrown away or kicked into a heap on the floor. Misha knew better than to just try and get to the action without prep, but he couldn't even focus on the thick line of Richard's cock, how it strained against his boxers (already stretched tight enough around Richard's ass, his hips, his thighs). Misha's eyes just kept drifting to Richard's waistband, to where it was slightly frayed and cutting ever-so-gently into his sides. Rocking their hips together, clenching his thighs around Richard's (plush, now that he noticed it) hips, Misha couldn't keep his hands to himself. Didn't want to even try.

Keeping his hands to himself seemed like the surest way to ensure that Misha died tonight. Focusing on anything but Richard seemed like it'd make the whole world end.

While Richard followed Misha's instructions and fumbled for the lube in the bedside table drawer, Misha watched the subtle bit of jiggle that Richard's belly had. The almost imperceptible way it bounced around. He whined, brushed his fingers into Richard's sides, carefully pressed into the little layer of pudge that Misha found there— _because what if he's insecure about it? I don't want him thinking it's bad or anything. He's too cute and nice and funny and smart and **cute** to get a complex about his weight_ —until that got to be insufficient and he just _had_ to dig in his nails.

Richard's throaty groan didn't give Misha any incentive to stop. He tilted his hips up off the mattress (finding that harder than he expected—probably just because Richard was grinding back at him), he helped nudge his boxers down over his dick and do the same with Richard's. But once they got that problem handled, Misha's hands were right back on Richard's sides. Roaming all over his hips, his belly, as much of his thighs as Misha could touch on—seeking out all of the pudge, all of the softness, all of the places where he hadn't had his fingers. Misha could've zoned out right there, just amusing himself with Richard's body.

He probably would have, if not for Richard going at Misha's hole with his lubed up fingers, teasing his prostate, scratching at his legs before pushing his cock into Misha. Gasping, trying not to whine for more, Misha scraped his nails down Richard's sides, dragged his hands around to cop a two-fisted feel of Richard's ass—he only cupped his hands on Richard's cheeks, at first, felt them strain around just how much flesh Richard really had there; but that wasn't enough for Misha; he had to claw at Richard's round, plump(-ish) ass, had to really grasp and clutch and… _Oh, God_ quivered out of Misha's lips even more from this groping than from taking on Richard's girth, from feeling Richard move inside of him.

"I prefer, 'Richard,' but, 'God,' works, too," he said through a snicker, thrusting deeper than he'd gone yet.

Misha moaned—it was the best alternative he had to whining—and bending up his legs, tightening them around Richard's hips, he tried to angle his hips _just right_. Pushing Richard on and pushing back against him and pushing himself further—he opened his mouth, intent on begging if he had to, if that would get him more—but the only thing that came out was a guttural, gravelly, and unmistakable whine. The only thing Misha managed to do was grip harder onto Richard's ass, move a hand back to his belly and pinch around as much pudge as Misha could find. Richard paid this back by taking Misha's dick in his hand—twisting his fingers around the shaft, scratching at the base, stroking Misha in long, hard motions, but never letting him come…

All bets were off when Richard tightened his hold on Misha's cock, leaned down and forward, growled right into Misha's ear. He made things even worse than that in the follow-up, purring, "Weighed one-thirty, one-thirty-two or something, soaking wet in a parka, when I got here last year. Up to one-sixty-four yesterday morning. Math and the Internet says that's right on the border of being technically overweight…"

That audacity made the hot, sticky feeling in Misha's gut spill out to ebb and flush throughout his whole body. Even hooked up to a polygraph machine, Misha never would have admitted to the exact number attached to his weight. Not where anybody could hear him. Not least since he'd lost two or three pounds since the start of term—he'd clocked in at one-fifty-seven this morning, and it was probably just a fluke, but he'd still been one-sixty at the start of term and he didn't need anybody reading too much into things.

But worse than that was the last realization that flashed through his mind. _Richard probably had seven pounds on Misha_ —he was shorter and heavier, all round and soft and—groaning, shutting his eyes so tightly it hurt, trembling all over, clenching his hand into Richard's ass and bucking his hips up one last time, Misha tried to hold off—tried not to cum until Richard had—tried to but knocked into that swell of paunch, felt it squish into his faint, slender abs—and everything went hot. White. Misha came with a gasp. A shudder and a howl. A whimper that he wouldn't admit to later—and once he'd finished, he let his eyes flutter, rolled onto his side, tried to catch his breath while Richard jerked himself off.

It seemed like ages by the time Richard finally nestled up to Misha's back, draped an arm around his waist, splayed his hand on Misha's stomach, nuzzled at the back of Misha's neck and pressed a trail of delicate kisses along Misha's spine. For his own part, Misha was just glad that he didn't get hard again at the feeling of Richard's starter-belly rubbing up on him again. He coughed. Flushed warmer, pinker at the thought, and at Richard's announcement that he looked so cute, lying there with a little schoolgirl blush.

"Yeah, well… you're chubby," Misha said thickly. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Richard chuckled, nipping at the skin above one of Misha's vertebrae. "Little bit, yeah," he said. "An' I've got reason to believe _you_ like it."

Under normal circumstances, Misha would've denied this. But he was too tired to even try it: "'s cute," he muttered. " _You're_ cute… with your tummy and your ass… can we be boyfriends or is this just… are we just having sexy time or what?"

"Like I'd bother taking you out if I only wanted sex—what kind of guy do you think I am, Pretty Boy?" He started out snickering, but soon enough, Richard sighed. "Look, Misha, I don't wanna accuse you of anything or be presumptuous about what you're thinking—"

"Your ass is pretty sumptuous—"

"Hey!" He dug his teeth into Misha's shoulder—not grazed, _dug_. "I'm being serious here, Gorgeous… It's just, like. I'd be all about being your boyfriend. You're smart, you're fun, you're great in bed—and Mark and Matt already told me you're kind of a chubby chaser—"

Misha groaned and thumped his head into the mattress. "Those _dicks_ ," he huffed, wringing his hands and rotating them on his wrists. "I'm gonna fucking kill them, sorry 'bout your roommate—"

"You just said it was cute—"

"It _is_ cute—I just hate that stupid word. …Phrase. …Whatever it is. _Chubby chaser_ —it's all objectifying and gross and it's not what I do, okay? It's just like… It's cool if other people wanna call themselves that, or if they're not all objectifying, but I just…" Whining again, he nuzzled back against Richard, tried to hook their bodies around each other more comfortably. "I'm kind of a feeder, sometimes, I guess? Mark called me that, anyway, and I'd only ever do it if somebody wanted me to? But I'm not a chubby chaser. That's not what I do."

This got another snicker out of Richard, and vaguely, Misha wanted to object, tell the dick to stop laughing at him, but all he managed was sighing in relief. _Thank God, he's not offended and hurt and realizing he just fucked a totally neurotic basket-case._

"Is it weird if I think it's precious when you get all fussy?" (Misha shrugged and guessed that it might've been.) "Whatever, fine—Matt and Mark told me you're into all of _this_ —" He chuckled again, rocking his hips _just so_ , nudging his stomach right up against Misha's back. "And that's cool, I'm not judging, like—no judgment here whatsoever—but y'know, all in the interests of being on the same page? I'm not just staying this size—not planning on it, anyway?"

He paused. Still took Misha a moment to realize Richard wanted him to have an opinion—and, at that, all he managed to say was, "Oh…?"

"Yeah, uh… My long-term goal's more like… My license says I weigh one-forty, and whether we're dating or not, I wanna get, uh… I wanna get a hundred pounds up on that, so…" He nuzzled into Misha's neck, then his hair. If Richard's cheeks hadn't been all hot and flushed, Misha would've been able to hear his blush in his voice. "So, I guess, uh… If you've got a problem with a two-hundred-forty-pound boyfriend, maybe we should just cut our losses now? Get out before it means too much?"

It was Misha's turn to laugh, this time, and once he'd rolled around to face Richard, he smiled into a gentle kiss. "Problem with it?" he whispered, voice low, confessional. "Fuck, I wanna _help_ you with it—y'know, erm. If you want?"

The grin Richard sported strained his face, and the kiss he gave back felt like a squeal of excitement. Misha thought he should've said something to how much Richard seemed to want his help, but all his attention went into feeling up the curve of Richard's starter-belly, trying to think of how much bigger they could get him by Christmas break.

 

Once upon a time, Misha got it into his head that he and Richard might've been more than good times and fantastic sex. More than Misha watching Richard eat, watching his waistline expand, his belly strain against his shirts and his jeans. Even more than the sessions of feeding Richard until he thought he'd burst, then lazily making out while Misha could still taste all the junk Richard could put away without worrying about the calories himself.

Just before Christmas break of their sophomore year, over a round of post-final exam drinks with his boys, Misha thought there might've been nothing else in the world but Richard—nothing else but the loose fall of his chocolatey hair and the spark behind his hazel eyes, nothing else but that smile, carefully crafted to look completely carefree… And then Misha wanted to smack himself for getting so disgustingly maudlin over anybody. Much less over his boyfriend. He hated those disgusting couples, the ones who just sat there and sucked face until they verged on being one entity, and yet… well.

Here he was. Sandwiched between Jensen and Richard, in a back-corner booth at McInerney's Pub, sipping at a strawberry daiquiri because Shepp refused to let Misha keep doing shots, making eyes at Richard and sort of considering turning into exactly one of those couples. An impulse that wasn't at all helped by how Richard kept letting his hand drift under the table, kept brushing his fingers up and down Misha's thigh…

Misha wasn't even sure how much of his blushing and giggling had to do with how much he drank, and how much had to do with Richard feeling him up a little… but everything was good by him.

Trying to lose himself in his daiquiri, Misha sighed. Silently reminded himself that sure, he'd had rather an awful lot to drink, but he and Richard had only been dating for three months. Ish. About three months. Something like that, he thought—and the way Misha let his gaze drift wound up with him getting an eyeful of Richard's stomach, that adorable swell of pudge that Misha was so fond of, that he hated not being able to have his hands all over, all the time…

It was really more of a potbelly or something, at this point, Misha thought… Words were complicated. Too complicated for Misha to really want to bother with after downing a few Mai-Tais, a beer or two, enough shots that he'd just stopped counting them, and about half of Shepp's very rum-heavy, tasty attempt to impugn Misha's masculinity. He just wanted to keep ogling Richard's body, thinking about how he looked naked, how he wasn't quite at two-hundred pounds yet (and he wouldn't get there until after Christmas), but he had to be close… At least, getting closer.

Getting closer every day, at that. He'd been gaining slowly ever since he'd first let Misha see his belly, but he'd weighed in at one-eighty-two before finals started. He might've been up a few more pounds by now, but Misha wouldn't have known because three out of four guys here had deemed getting drinks more important than checking up on that, getting a measuring tape around Richard's middle and making notes on his progress. And though he hadn't won, Misha was okay with this. What really mattered was that, even if Richard hadn't put on all of the twenty pounds they wanted, his gain was showing more, his tummy getting more squeezable and luscious…

He was filling out and getting thicker, rounder, having a harder time hiding his paunch underneath his clothes—and Misha loved every minute of it. Richard's tighter shirts rode up on him now, winkling around his curves and strained to contain Richard's girth, exposing a strip of skin when they failed to meet the waistbands of his pants. Even his more comfortable shirts hadn't escaped this fate: they still fit him and allowed for some pretenses of modesty, but none of them could be called, "baggy," anymore. They didn't quite _cling_ to his self-described jelly-belly, his burgeoning love-handles; they just complemented it nicely, neither emphasizing nor downplaying it… And, really, it didn't matter exactly what they did, from Misha's perspective. The end result of arousal and a need for contact was all the same, to him.

Other parts of Richard's body had gotten in on the act, too. None to quite the same extent as his belly, but Misha didn't care—any part of Richard that got chubbier was just more boyfriend for Misha to love, more means of getting turned on and more ways for Richard to induce embarrassing amounts of sexual frustration. These days, his ass was putting as much pressure on his jeans as his stomach did, and his thighs relished in getting a piece of this action, crowding together and jiggling up against one another whenever Richard moved. His cheeks had filled out a bit, and he'd started growing the slightest hints of a double-chin, and staring at him now just gave Misha one thought.

He had to have his hands all over Richard _right now_.

Sure, Misha knew they were in public. The Pub definitely counted as public, even if it was so crammed full of people that Misha could hardly breathe, much less expect anyone else to care about him none-too-subtly checking Richard out. Aside from maybe Shepp and Jensen, since they were opposite Misha and at his left, respectively. And they were currently single. And while Misha licked at his lips, rolled his straw between them, Shepp tried his damnedest to change the subject.

"You'd really think the cops would bust this place more often," he said dryly, commenting over his pint and casting a glance over the Pub's other patrons and arching an eyebrow that was suspicious, judgmental, or possibly both. "That freshman at the bar looks about _twelve_ and Bill absolutely hasn't carded him once."

"I heard Bill's fucking the Chief of Police or something," Richard said, tracing his fingers through Misha's hair, which was even worse than going for his thigh, really—it wasn't fair for Misha to just be sitting here, trying to behave himself, and Richard didn't fucking care. Had to go and tease him while he kept right on spewing some conspiracy theorist shit or other: "Having an affair behind the Mrs. Chief of Police's back, blackmailing him into leaving the Pub alone or else… It's some serious soap opera shit, I heard. Like, _telenovela_ -level soap opera shit."

And Richard snickered. And that was about all he had to do… His citrus soda-y, sweet-and-sour snicker made everything else stop existing.

Only metaphorically, though, Misha tried to remind himself—and leaned so far back into the booth that he started slipping out and sliding to the floor. Richard and Jensen caught him. They took one arm each and hoisted Misha back up into his seat. His face flushed again, all cozy and warm and totally in spite of Misha being pretty sure that his cheeks had no more room for blush on them.

And Misha tried to explain himself—and how he'd just been trying to test that everything was still really there, since it'd only gone away metaphorically—but everything came out wrong. Like he was listening to himself talk underwater. Or his mouth was full of peanut butter and stupidity. All the words sounded right in Misha's head, while he tried to think them through, but he was still self-aware enough to know he was babbling like an idiot.

And that, he thought, was _hilarious_.

He stopped talking mid-thought, coming to a stumbling halt. Tried to start up again, but found himself with a case of thick, heavy Novocaine-tongue. "Which is just. just CRAZY, am I right?" he managed to say through his sporadic giggling. "Because like, I. I haven't—I've not a little… Like, I mean. Like. No dentist's even had needles near my teeth since… since… I can't remember since when but probably since I was thirteen, like… like… liiiiiiiiiike!"

Now, Shepp arched his eyebrows at Misha—which was _also_ hilarious. In a half-hearted sort of way, Misha tried to repress his urge to smile… but he was only aware of how ridiculous his behavior was getting in the way that someone unacquainted with cars knew when something underneath the hood had gotten loose. Right down to the specifics, even. Odd noises—Misha had random gasps and snorts, all the side-effects of trying not to laugh. Some little "get car checked" light—the grin straining at the edges of Misha's lips. And, finally, Shepp reached across the table and flicked two fingers into Misha's forehead.

That was it: Misha exploded. Pent up laughter chorused off the walls. Drowned out the other noise up in the Pub, as far as Misha could tell—which didn't mean much, considering he soon found himself getting up close and personal with the floor. And the ABC gum-encrusted underside of the table. And the flailing legs, suddenly-clenching-fingers-in-his-armpits feeling of Richard and Jensen yanking him back into his seat.

This time, once they had Misha back in place, Richard hooked an arm around his waist, gripped tight onto Misha's hip—and, in turn, Misha draped his arms around Richard's shoulders. Held on for dear life and fucking then-some. Nuzzled up on Richard's neck, his booze-thick laughter brushing up on Richard's warm skin.

"Baaaabe," Richard snickered, kissing Misha's forehead. "You are _so. wasted_."

"I was going to suggest that he'd been kidnapped and replaced by a deranged Valley girl," Shepp said, completely deadpan. Sipping at his Guinness like it was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for him to watch Misha acting like a nitrous oxide-hopped-up-spider monkey.

"'m not _that_ drunk," Misha said, even as he felt everything start sliding around again. Even as he curled his legs up on the seat—accidentally, in this process, kicking Jensen in the hip—and clung harder to Richard's shoulders. Even as he had to clench his eyes shut, the whole world felt so fucking sick, and buried a moan in the soft curves of Richard's neck, his burgeoning double-chin. "'kay… 'kay—oh. _'kay_ ," Misha acquiesced with a sigh, squeezing his arms around Richard again. "Okay, maybe 'm drunk."

"In a year-and-a-half of living with you, Meesh?" Jensen said as though announcing at a football game. "I have _never_ seen you this shit-faced."

" _Your face smells like pie!_ " Misha tried to round on Jensen, just so he wouldn't be yelling right into Richard's year, but… the balance was off. And the force was off. And everything about Misha's physical state was off. And the only reason why he didn't go tumbling back to the floor was that Richard pulled him back into place. And he wound up rummaging in his jacket pocket—not with much purpose that initially came to mind; just poking around.

Misha had no real earthly clue what he was doing, only that he needed something out of his pocket—needed it _really badly_ —and maybe what he needed wasn't the cherry-flavored Ring Pop that he pulled out. But once he had his hand on it, he lost track of whether or not he'd meant to grab anything else. All he could manage involved babbling into Richard's neck. Doing that so incoherently that even Misha had no idea what he was saying—and finally, he gave up. Started waving the Ring Pop in Richard's face. Spewed some still-half-unintelligible something-or-other he wouldn't even remember later. And only shut himself up when he realized that he'd somehow spit out:

"And I—I just really, really, _really_ love you—you're, like, smart. And amazing. And really funny. And I love it when you're not paying attention and your little accent thingy, you start slipping up with it and you sound super, suuuuper Southern and it's totally precious and I love it, and… Richard! Stop—wait—don't laaaaaugh… _I. really. love. you_ —and you… I _want_ you, Dickie—Richard Speight Jr.—I want you to make an honest man out of me, okay? I want you to marry me, and just… just take this and… and just accept it, or hold onto it, or whatever until I get you a real ring, okay, honey?"

And Misha couldn't stand getting so disgustingly sentimental. Couldn't stand the way his whole chest got so hot, he thought he might start sweating. But it didn't even really matter much when Richard smiled down at him. Tossed the wrapper at Shepp's head and slid the ring onto his left hand. Kissed Misha without comment and, every day over of the holiday break, took gratuitous webcam shots of himself wearing the cheap plastic ring that'd formerly had a sweet on it. Which, Misha guessed, made up for how Richard didn't keep him updated on his weight.

Shameless as ever, he put them all up on Facebook, tagged Misha in each one. Even once he'd sobered up, Misha couldn't help smiling when he looked at one of them. Not even Richard's stupid Southern accent joke— _"How is my hand like a pie? …It's got mah-rrraaaaaang on it!"_ —could make him stop.

As Vicki pointed out, a couple days after Christmas: somehow, without expecting it or intending for it to happen (ever, not just in college), Misha had fallen in love. Not that he hadn't been fond of Shepp, and not that he hadn't fancied other people before. Not least of which was Jensen, who'd been unbearably pretty, and sweet, and fun to be around long before he'd started putting on weight and making Misha's sexual frustration that much worse. …But Richard was different. _Special_.

"And don't you _dare_ go getting insecure and sabotaging yourself with this, brother, okay?" she said, leaning down and cuddling up to Misha… probably just to get a better position peer over his shoulder at the ridiculous picture with Richard's even more ridiculous joke attached in the caption. It featured Richard smirking up at them, shoving his hand into the forefront of the shot.

"Meesh," Vicki went on with a contented sigh. "I like it when you're smiling so much, okay? Sue me. I'm your sister and I like it when you're happy. And this boyfriend? I like him. You keep him around as long as he's still making you happy or I will break into your room with a sharpened spork, do you understand me?"

Misha understood her. And he couldn't see any reason why he'd fail to listen to her.

 

Once upon a time, Richard showed up from winter break noticeably heavier—noticeable not just because of the strain he put on his t-shirt, one of the ones that had fit him pretty well before the holiday—but refused to outright tell Misha how much weight he'd gained. What Misha knew for sure was that he even looked like he'd gotten bigger than he was in the webcam photos he put up on Facebook—which (in fairness to Misha and his perception) were all pretty grainy and tended to be up close pictures of his face.

He wandered into Misha and Jensen's room while Jensen was off doing something with Danneel, and he kept up the bullshit of teasing Misha. Saying he'd brought back a surprise for his boy—he just wouldn't say what. He wouldn't even let Misha do more than hug him (tightly, but not for long enough to really marvel at how much wider Richard seemed; feel Richard's decidedly fuller, softer middle rub up on him; fail to resist the temptation to grope Richard's ass, for all this got Misha snapped at and told not to touch "the merchandise"). He only insisted that Misha would really, _really_ like the present—which, fortunately for Misha's nerves, revealed itself when he got Richard up on the scale.

_198.5_ —the bright red numbers stared up at Misha and he felt fairly certain that his eyes would pop out of his skull. Richard grinned, palmed at his belly (sneaking a hand underneath the hem of his shirt in a way he knew would make Misha crazy) and shook it, asked if Misha liked what he saw. Misha nodded as he struggled to find the right words, since "liked" didn't really go far enough in describing how he felt about Richard's progress, how he felt sitting on the U-bend and looking up at just the right angle to see how much bigger Richard's double-chin had gotten.

What he wound up with was a bunch of stumbled-over words and half-starts, a few stray mutterings of _but, how_ , but he finally managed to say: "Babe, I only told you to try and put on ten pounds as a kind of… loose suggestion… This is just… _sixteen_ pounds?"

"Sixteen-and-a-half, Sexy," Richard corrected him, snickering and wearing a grin to rival the Big Bad Wolf's. With a too-casual shrug, he added: "I guess I just got hungry—and I mean, my Aunt Dinah did all the cooking for the holidays, and filled my parents' place with all these sweets, and her food's just too delicious to pass up…" He fake-sighed. Started rubbing circles around the deep indent of his bellybutton. "Maybe I over-indulged a bit, but you don't _mind_ it, right?"

Rolling his eyes, Misha tried to bat Richard's hand away from his middle; once Richard obliged, Misha sunk both of his own palms into his boyfriend's soft, warm flesh and let slip a quivery whine. "Well, I mind you being a total cock-tease," he said (though he wasn't sure how he'd managed to make words work). "But I definitely don't mind this. Not even a little bit…"

"Hey, what if I were being serious, here?" Whether or not Richard meant to be serious wasn't clear from the pouty face he put on. What _was_ obvious, though, was that one arch of Misha's eyebrow set him laughing. "Fine, I'm fucking around—but what if I were seriously doubting that you'd keep me, looking like this? What if I were really insecure and you just called me a cock-tease instead of taking me seriously?"

Misha tried to smirk, but wound up giving Richard a smile far more affectionate and fond. "Well, then, I guess I'd have to give you a blow-job or fuck you with the lights turned on or… Whatever would convince you that I love you for reasons other than how much you weigh."

"Yeah, right. You haven't given me a blow-job yet and you know it."

And Misha had his reasons for that, sure—not least of which was his pathetic gag reflex ( _seriously, Richard_ , he'd said once before, _my dentist has had to knock me out so I wouldn't upchuck while he worked before_ )—but that sounded like a challenge, to him. No doubt it was intentional. Richard _knew_ how Misha got about being challenged—so, once they'd measured Richard's waist (forty-one inches around), they wound up making out, all clashing mouths and gnashing teeth, sucking on tongues and hips grinding into hips—

Misha gave the lap-dance this time, straddling Richard's plush hips, bucking and worming against him, letting Richard get his t-shirt off before he tried to take off Richard's. He palmed at Richard through his jeans, tried to focus on Richard's dick instead of on his muffin-top… Fortunately, it doesn't take Misha that long to get Richard hard—well, fortunately for Misha's attention span, but quite unfortunately for the fluttering in his stomach and the anxious twisting in his chest. All of the nervous energy racketing around inside him just made Misha kiss harder, put more intention behind his thrusts—he couldn't have Richard thinking that he didn't want this.

He didn't intend to waste time or let himself fall to the mercy of that apprehensiveness—Richard had challenged him and Misha was going to meet that head-on—but he still kept kissing at Richard, kept grinding down on him and rubbing the thick line of Richard's cock against his ass. He kept this up until Richard whined. Bit at his lower lip in a way that _hurt_ , made Misha yelp and not in the fun sort of way. Snickered at him and said, _You're adorable, Meesh, but if you don't blow me soon, I'm gonna go out of my fucking mind…_

Nodding, Misha slithered down off of Richard's lap, palming at his pudgy thighs as he went; he slunk down to the floor, kneeling between Richard's legs. He fumbled with Richard's jeans—nudging the overhang of Richard's belly out of the way was the easy part—trying to undo the button, though, made Misha blush—he kept losing his hold, dropping the button— _God fucking dammit, did I just forget how to use my hands or what?_ —and once he finally got the button undone, Richard was laughing hard enough that his belly nudged the zipper down without Misha doing anything. Laughing about how Misha looked _so precious_ down there, screwing up like he was.

Misha tried to ignore that (not to mention the hot, sick flush that rose to his cheeks and Richard's fingers carding through his hair)—but he just hit more foul ups once he wrapped his hands up in the jeans' waistband. For one thing, he had to wriggle the pants off Richard's ass without any help getting them off. Then, they snagged on Richard's thighs and wouldn't move, despite all of Misha's nudging and tugging— _How the fuck did you even get these on—did you paint them on or something—fuck's sake, Richard, I'm being serious here, you dick. These things could've cut off your circulation or something, don't you have any pants that fucking fit? I mean, just… like… fucking seriously. Come on, help me with this, okay_ —and once he succeeded in getting them down to Richard's knees, he still had to handle the boxers. Misha's stomach turned at the thought of fucking this part up, too.

They looked just as painted-on as his jeans, now that Misha could see them—the waistband was fraying and, once Richard decided to take pity on him and get the things off instead of making Misha do it, all Misha wanted to focus on was the set of indentations that the shorts had left in Richard's flesh. They went deeper than any other marks he'd ever seen decorating his boyfriend's body, were a darker angrier shade of red from where the shorts had sliced into Richard's waist, his sides—his belly still looked cut in half from where his underwear had been too tight and part of it had spilled over the waistband. Then there was the state of his chest—he'd started accumulating fat there, too, with a set of pretty modest breasts finally starting to melt out, starting to flop toward his gut…

Misha wanted to look everywhere but at Richard's dick. Even glancing in its direction made him blush with the fact that he'd never given a blow-job before. Shepp had given them to him but hadn't asked Misha to reciprocate, and he hadn't had another significant other—but Misha had promised Richard. And he wanted to make good on a promise to his boyfriend. And he couldn't just keep avoiding blow-jobs forever… With a sigh, Misha closed the space between himself and the bed-frame. Licked his lips (because they felt too dry—not to mention still pretty tender from how hard he and Richard had been grinding their mouths together—further not to mention that it stalled for time). Took a deep breath and sighed again; curled his hands up on Richard's thighs, digging his fingertips into Richard's flab.

Finally, Misha flicked his tongue out, moved it along the curve of Richard's dick in a long, slow swoop (and Misha grimaced at the terrible taste, but it wasn't any worse than a protein bar—at least dick didn't pretend to be chocolate-flavored). He kissed at the base, gently at first, but then going harder, tilting his head so he could his lips around Richard's girth and nipping at the skin before Richard got any ideas that Misha would be too nice about this. He licked along the underside of Richard's shaft—and maybe Richard was giving him signals; he heard noises coming from somewhere above his head but didn't bother paying attention to them, not when he was trying to focus on the real task at hand. He licked at the tip, then kissed it, closed his eyes and took Richard's cock into his mouth (immediately thanking his genetics for a flexible jaw).

His resolve not to watch this didn't last long—even with his jaw taking this in its stride, Misha still had trouble getting his mouth around Richard's dick _right_. He kept biting at awkward moments, or having to take his mouth off the shaft and gasp for breath—to say nothing of how his stomach turned every time Richard's tip came too close to the back of his throat. Even once he got it through his head that he had to breathe through his nose, Misha couldn't manage to get the motions right. He had no idea how it felt for Richard, but Misha's cheeks and neck burned red-hot and all he wanted to do was get this over with then go hide in the bathroom until the shame went away.

Tightening his lips and trying to scrape his teeth along Richard's shaft just wound up with Misha coughing—which, in turn, wound up with him toppling forward, further into Richard's lap and getting his mouth further down the cock than he'd managed beforehand—not that this felt like any sort of accomplishment, not when Richard's tip dug deep into the back of his throat, knocked all around and made Misha's stomach start doing its old flip-flops all over again— _no, no, no, fuck that, God fucking, NO, I'm not gonna let my gag reflex with this one, it's not going to fucking happen_ —pulling back ever-so-slightly, Misha tried to recover, but the feeling that he was going to gag hung around—and he couldn't imagine Richard enjoying this ( _he's probably just wondering why he had to find the one guy on this campus who **can't** properly suck a dick_ ), and—

Groaning, Richard bucked his hips up toward Misha—knocked his dick back _so far_ —Misha flinched, trembled, tried to avoid anything happening, much less what he thought might—Richard grunted, thrusted again—then another time to go with it—Misha whined and was almost thankful that the sound got muffled by the dick in his throat—even without Richard thrusting, Misha tried to take more of him in, maybe it'd keep Richard from thrusting, if Misha just—nope, _fuck_ , another jerk of Richard's hips—his tip hit the back of Misha's throat and he still pushed his hips again, right in time with Misha trying to take more on his own—

Stars went off in Misha's eyes like camera flashes—white crowded in on the edges of his view—for a moment, he forgot how to breathe through his nose and spluttered, tried to get air in through his mouth—he only got more taste of cock—and Richard thrusted at him again—Misha bit down on him but not hard, right as Richard pulled back, dragged his cock back with Misha's teeth still pushing in on it—he shuddered, cumming hard in Misha's mouth, jerking his hips still another time until his dick might as well have just gone into Misha's stomach before finally leaving Misha's mouth empty—and choking the hot, sticky, scratchy mess back was the last straw.

He wobbled to his feet, felt his head spin and stick the world in a slow-motion filter—Getting up took enough energy that Misha found himself disoriented, staring down at Richard, at how he'd thrown his head back and how his mess of hair hung back from his head—but everything lurched—the whole world had that sick, weightless feeling of dropping down an elevator shaft, just cresting the top of a roller-coaster—Misha bolted. Dropped to his knees in the bathroom. Wanted to zone out, tried to pretend he was anywhere else, but— _fuck my fucking life_ —couldn't. Everything came up. All the bile and the food and Richard's jizz and more bile—fucking everything—every breath Misha took in rebounded on him, put force behind his fucking gastric pyrotechnics—so he tried not to breathe, but that just made his chest writhe and burn in addition to the kicked-in-the-stomach feeling of puking up his guts until he thought he'd see his kidneys next.

He finished up with a sigh. Dropped his head to the toilet seat—vaguely, his mind protested this idea— _what the fuck about all the germs_ —and for all Misha wanted _not to move ever again_ , he knew his mind had a point. He flopped to the side and right into Richard's arms, muttered something about where the Hell did Richard come from. Huffing, ruffling Misha's hair, Richard helped him to his feet. Gave Misha a paper cup with water in it so he could wash out his mouth. Half-carried Misha back to bed and nuzzled up behind him on the mattress.

And while Misha started drifting off, Richard pressed feather-light kisses to his temple, then the pulse-point below his ear and whispered, "Okay, yeah, Sexy—you were great, you're a fucking star, but how about let's skip the blow jobs from here on out?"

And suddenly, it didn't seem to matter all that much, how much Misha's throat hurt, or how much his head ached, or how he felt like a nice big slice of hot, microwaved death. He had Richard. He had Richard cuddling him while he was sick. And wasn't that more important than anything else? Than the puking incident, anyway?


	2. Protecting both your heart and mine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the holiday to Narnia continues and things begin falling apart.

Once upon a time, a few days after that unfortunate blow-job incident, Richard's weight climbed up over the two-hundred mark—only by half-a-pound, granted, but both of them grinned to see that number. And in response to Misha pointing out the caveat to the success, Richard just smirked and said, " _Sixty percent_ of a pound, jerk—give me some fucking credit, here. Y'know, for putting on _sixty percent_ of a pound? That's why the little display thing says point-six instead of point-five."

Misha shrugged, put on his most innocent-looking smile. "Look who's so full of himself. I bet you couldn't get up to two-oh-five in the next week, Tubby," he said, only meaning it as a joke, and mildly shocked that Richard jumped right into making proposals for terms.

They batted these ideas around for a good few minutes, losing track of time and logic in the rush and fumble of making out, of Misha getting his hands all over Richard's body, of their clashing mouths and gnashing teeth—and finally, they agreed that okay, fine. Come the end of the betting period, whoever won got to pick what kind of sex they had next.

"And you blowing me is still off-limits, Pretty Boy," Richard chuckled in between a series of bite-laden kisses all along Misha's neck. "So don't even go thinking about it, mmmkay?"

Misha shrugged. Tilted his head back, stretched out his neck so Richard could have better access to it. "That's a bad joke," he said, getting the last word on the subject. Assuring that it would be the last by shoving Richard's shoulders, knocking him back onto the mattress, stretching out atop him and getting a more comfortable position for some lazy kissing. Kissing, grinding, more kissing, and no more talking about blow-jobs.

Shit, after the incident, Misha hardly wanted Richard blowing him ever again, much less subjecting himself to the giving end.

Losing the bet snuck up on Misha. He tried to fake like his head was in the game, but the fact of the matter was that he spent most of the week off somewhere else, even while Richard put away food like he did and teased different items along his lips (deliberately trying to tease Misha with this, get him turned on and thinking about Richard's mouth, regardless of where they were or how they—usually—happened to be in public). He should've been minding his boyfriend's weight. Or thinking more actively about it. More actively manipulating Richard's choices of meals and snacks. The problem wasn't that Misha couldn't focus on weight.

The problem was that he was focused on the wrong person's: his own.

Not that Misha's weight was out-of-hand— _not yet, anyway_ , was his one lingering, nagging suspicion, the one he never quite managed to silence—and on some level, he recognized that he had nothing to worry about. But his favorite jeans, the tight ones, fit differently from the beginning of the semester. They still fit, just a bit more uncomfortably—more snuggly, especially around the waist—which had always been Misha's biggest problem area and which felt… not that much different? a little softer, maybe, though still mostly slender…

Prodding at it made Misha wonder if he needed to start adding more core-targeted exercises to his trips to the gym, if he hadn't been skipping too many gym sessions and going on runs to compensate, just like he'd failed to pay close attention to his weight since starting to help Richard gain… _Oh, God, what if I'm getting fat—I can't let that happen, it's not okay—I mean, they still fit, so there's probably nothing going on, but what **if**_ … Misha had never really had great abs in the first place, but the muscles had been easier to get his hands on, and with his jeans seemingly tightening up… All of which made Misha worry. He didn't feel fat. Not really. Aside from the handful of days when he woke up hating his body, his hair, his eyes, everything about himself—the ones that Richard and Jensen and Vicki assured him were nothing to write home about because they happened to everybody.

And still, the Moment Of Truth Day found Misha sitting on the edge of Misha's shower, staring at where the scale rested near the wall. Staring at the scale itself, and then the wall above it when he felt too ashamed to keep looking at the scale. Nominally, he was waiting for Richard to get in from his afternoon class—at least, that's what Misha told Jensen, before he wandered out to spend the evening with Vicki and Danneel. But, really, Misha was worrying. He was good at that. He was also good at convincing himself of things that maybe weren't true—like that, naturally, he had to be imagining things. That he was just letting his nerves get the better of him. That getting on the scale would put his mind to rest.

Misha swallowed thickly, staring down at the verdict in its bright red, digital read-out: _168.5_ —ten-and-a-half pounds. He'd put on ten-and-a-half pounds since starting to help Richard with his half-cocked quest to chase after two-forty-five. Groaning, rubbing hard at the bridge of his nose, Misha backed off the scale, flopped back onto his perch on the edge of the shower, and texted Richard to just come right in when he got here, since the door wasn't locked. More like because Misha didn't want to have to get up—he needed to stay here and mull over how to get a handle on his weight before it became a problem.

Because it wasn't a problem yet—ten-and-a-half pounds since October was hardly a huge change, not least compared to how much weight Richard had gained… Besides, the difference was mostly imperceptible. Misha only noticed it himself because of his jeans. Richard, Jensen, and Vicki had all seen him in various states of undress and hadn't said anything—maybe he was even exaggerating it a bit… But he'd still acquired the extra few pounds because of slipping up. Indulging too much while Richard gorged himself on foods Misha probably shouldn't have helped himself to, and not going to the gym enough… Misha frowned. Prodded at his middle and kept coming up shocked when he couldn't lose a knuckle in his stomach.

Even when Richard showed up, though, Misha's thoughts stayed on the same track— _one-sixty-eight-and-a-half, one-sixty-eight-and-a-half, one-sixty-eight-and-a-half—that's getting a bit high for us, isn't it? we need to look into this, self._ Even when he and Richard peered around his belly and saw the bright red _206_ stare up at them and when Richard announced his victory, Misha couldn't manage to shake himself out of this rut. The only thing that managed it was watching Richard pull a set of gorgeously crafted leather cuffs out of his hip pocket and grin, dangling them in front of Misha's face.

Turned out, what Richard wanted was to play more with getting Misha to submit.

"I don't—I mean, I don't want you to just agree to this because I won, or it won't go well for either of us… And it's not like you should just give up and stop doing things right off the bat, or like you can't tell me to stop this, do that other stuff, or I'm not allowed to do something," Richard explained (needlessly; because he hadn't seen the substantial stash of BDSM erotica on Misha's computer, hidden under his bed—because he needed to feel like a protective educator in this situation, and Misha had no problems nodding along and feigning ignorance). "I mean, submission's about a lot of things, but you can still be yourself—you can still get feisty with me—"

"I wouldn't dream of being anything but, really," Misha said and rolled his eyes, smirking fondly. "For fuck's sake, it's impossible for me not to run my mouth off and get pissy and demanding and everything else…" And he added, affecting the most petulant whine in his repertoire, " _God_ , Richard, it's like you haven't even been fucking me since _October_."

"So I'm taking all of this as you're cool with this idea, babe? With playing it rough, and some smacking around, and like… everything?" Chuckling and mussing up Misha's hair, Richard leaned up to steal a kiss—into which he threw a nip on Misha's lower lip, more playful than anything, and all Misha managed to think about it was that he wasn't biting nearly hard enough.

So he bit at Richard instead, tugged him closer by the straining waistband of his too-tight jeans and kissed him hard, growling into his mouth, holding him there until they both needed to breathe. Then, smiling all too easily, he said, "My go-to safe-word is, 'Princess Peach.' If that's fine with you, _Sir_."

( _Well… the go-to safe-word that I've always wanted to use is, 'Princess Peach.' But I've done enough reading to know I want this, so what's up with all the killing time here? Fuck me already. Make me **scream**._ )

As he agreed to Richard's idea another three times, followed Richard back out to the room and didn't ask about the strange bag sitting next to Richard's backpack, Misha tried to play cool about it all. Tried to just shrug and nod, give his boy a casual smile and suppose that he could go for that, if Richard really wanted—but Misha couldn't help how high his eyebrows arched, or the way that his heart leapt up to his throat and started doing flip-flops, pounding so fast and so hard that his head spun. _This has to be what a heart attack feels like_ —and, honestly, the new shock of Misha's situation was that it had taken Richard this long to decide that he wanted to dominate Misha.

Which led to Misha finding himself on the floor, half-seated, half-reclined. Naked and handcuffed at the foot of the bed, chained up to the frame with the new leather cuffs on one hand and Richard's metal ones jangling around on the other. Watching Richard strip and throwing out a stray comment about how the school's choice in carpeting was actually quite comfortable. Since Richard wasn't even making a game or a tease out of shedding his own clothing, the least Misha could do here was amuse himself. Richard just shook his head, affectionately rolled his eyes and got down to his boxers, and by the time he was really being interesting again, it wasn't due to being naked. He trailed a finger up the length of Misha's neck, coaxed him into a hard kiss—didn't let it last, though. Didn't let Misha get comfortable or start enjoying it any.

Jerked away before Misha could get used to it and, instead of doing anything that Misha expected, tied his favorite scarf—the royal blue one that his grandmother had made for him—around Misha's head, and tightly, covering up Misha's eyes. Misha snickered a bit as his view went dark—made some off-the-cuff comment about how he couldn't appreciate Richard's most recent gain with a blindfold on. Richard gently thwapped him on the cheek and hissed, _hey, I didn't ask for you opinion, did I, Pet?_ —which just made Misha's snickering problem worse. Made him start laughing so hard he felt it everywhere—and that lasted until Richard actually smacked him.

Misha gasped, not from the impact but from the fact that Richard went there. His cheek stung like he'd gotten plugged into a battery, but it hurt more because Richard was always so gentle otherwise, at least about Misha's face. Even in rough sex. The sound crackled in the air, louder than Misha's breath or Richard's—Misha hardly noticed the way Richard's hands were working, hardly noticed them until they stroked along his flaccid dick. Until Richard was tightening the cock-ring in place. Misha whined, feeling it encircle the base of his shaft, and squirmed, rocking his hips around as the shiver coursed up his spine—they'd played with toys before, probably even with this specific ring, for all Misha hadn't seen it before Richard got to work. But God—not having his eyes—and the way that his shoulders, part of his back, couldn't hit the floor—

"Well, look at you, Pretty Boy," Richard said, cooing and tut-tutting as he stroked the backs of his fingers down Misha's cheek. "You look so gorgeous here, y'know. All prone and vulnerable… Expectant. And not a little bit impatient…" He flicked a finger right over where he'd smacked Misha's cheek, scraped his nails on the skin; it stung harder than the thwap before it did. "You know, I could do… shit, just about anything I wanted right now. …I could do anything to you and you couldn't stop me."

"Yeah, well, isn't that sort of the point?" Misha snarked, entirely going after the reaction that he wanted—a smack landed on his cheek again, harder than its predecessor, and grinning, he turned the other cheek. The one Richard hadn't had his hands on yet. Misha added: "Come on, what the fuck sort of dom _are_ you—Dickie, my _grandmother_ hits harder than that. The one who knits the sweaters."

Another smack, and harder still, and Richard's throaty chuckle of, "Yeah, well, knitting sweaters probably gives her pretty strong hands."

"My sweater-knitting grandma is a _corpse_ , you priss."

Misha didn't have to do anything more than that and he grinned into the reaction—Richard just smacked him again. Gripped onto Misha's shoulder and dug his nails into Misha's skin, down to his flesh and muscle—he scratched, _hard_ , definitely leaving a trail behind as he traced up from Misha's shoulder blade, over the hump of his shoulder, down his collarbone. Misha had to wonder how he wasn't bleeding—if he had to start getting mouthier to really feel this—to really feel all of Richard's strength, all the things that Richard wanted him to feel—Misha could make plans, he could prepare his insults and backtalk in advance, he'd read enough erotica and enough kink blogs to guess where Richard might want to take things—he couldn't think about this process too much, though.

Not when Richard swooped down on him like he did—stretched out over Misha's body, letting every pound of flesh he had bear down on Misha, squishing every inch of softness up on Misha's ( _comparatively slender_ ) frame—and wrapped Misha's mouth up in a kiss like a wolf taking down a bear. Misha startled, only managed letting Richard kiss him for a moment—but the playful nibble on his lower lip sparked something that caught fire—Misha tried his best to fling himself full-force up into the kiss. Smashed his lips into Richard's without concern for how they looked, mangling each other's mouths like this, or how they fit together—he wound up sucking on Richard's upper lip because they didn't time their movements right—he jerked his head too much, too soon, and instead of getting bitten where Richard had intended, Misha found his boyfriend's mouth wrapping up on his Adam's apple.

To Richard's credit, he took that in his stride—bit Misha's neck to start, then kissed. Sucked. Shifted on Misha's hips— _fuck you, you son of a bitch—I want to feel your dick grinding up on me, not your fucking boxers—sure, your belly's nice, it always is, but tell me how it's fair that I can't have your cock in my life right now_ —and tightened his ( _oh, **fuck** , those feel nice—we've got to find some way to get you moving less. I wanna feel these bigger, softer…_) thighs around Misha's hips. Kept right on kissing, with heart-pounding urgency and vampiric attention to detail; didn't even stop and go back to Misha's lips until there were two huge raw spots spilling over Misha's skin—one over his Adam's apple and one over his jugular vein. They flushed hot. They _felt_ red. They'd be hickeys by dinnertime, for sure, and there wasn't any way Misha could hide them effectively.

Richard brushed his fingers over one piece of his handiwork, his touch lighter than air, and just that contact set Misha squirming, writhing underneath him, legs flailing, unstoppable, like Misha was getting tickled—all the nerves under his skin lit up like fireworks, his whole neck got burning like a wildfire—Misha whined, gasped, took in a deep, shuddering breath; his stomach sucked in of its own volition and held that spot, that concave shape—and still he tilted his neck, trying to egg Richard on and get him to touch Misha there again. Richard snickered. Chuckled. Kissed Misha again. And gently this time.

Not like that got Misha to behave himself— _oh, Hell no, this won't… Since when's this okay, you dick._ Richard had given Misha leave to make this difficult, and if he wanted to kiss like animals, fuck it, they were going to kiss like _animals_. He tugged away from the kiss. Pulled his lips back and made a tutting noise to echo Richard's own—when Richard chased after him, Misha tried to move his mouth again. Again. Another time—and finally Richard caught him.

Misha smirked into the kiss, throwing all the force that he could behind it, behind biting onto Richard's lower lip so he couldn't get the fuck away—for all he meant to keep it to himself, Misha heard, _where do you think you're going?_ , slip out of his mouth and into Richard's. Fortunately, Richard got with the program—kissed Misha back without another word and even harder than before.

Misha's lungs wriggled in his chest when he went too long without oxygen, but once he got a mouthful of it, he forced his lips back into Richard's. Misha needed this kiss more than he needed air. What was the point of air, anyway. Breathing was superfluous. For kids and weaklings. Not for people who could kiss like this.

They found a rhythm, eventually, of lips battering into lips, rubbing and chafing against each other—Misha sucked Richard's tongue into his mouth and bit down; Richard dug his teeth into Misha's lower lip until Misha groaned, whined for him to stop. That Richard pulled back even a little made Misha bite on him harder. There hadn't been a safe-word. They'd never kissed harder, faster, hotter—any kiss they'd shared, all the ones that jumped out in Misha's memories; they couldn't hold a candle to this—

Even feeling them tingle in his lips all over again, like they were happening right here and now—they weren't the same—they weren't as… anything good. _Words are stupid, why do we even have them._ Any former kisses weren't as much fun, at any rate—they paled in comparison… After only a few moments, Misha could swear he felt bruises pooling up on his lips.

To say nothing of the trembles this kiss sent reeling through Misha's body—trembles like his stomach couldn't stop flip-flopping, like all his muscles were shivering—

Rocking his hips into Misha's, Richard gnawed at Misha's mouth. "You're such a bitchy, demanding little slut," he growled without pulling away even a little. The words echoed around in Misha's mouth. "You don't even know how much I could break you, how I could take you apart… Jesus Christ, I love you so much—"

" _Stay in character_ ," Misha hissed, nipping at Richard's lip.

And, sure enough, Richard takes that the right way—he kisses Misha one last time, for now—even looking back on this fuck, even sitting on the sofa in an apartment past-Misha hadn't even seen yet, Misha can feel these sensations like they're right here and now. It only lasts a moment, but it's still a massive sensory overload—Sunday afternoon fades away and everything turns into this memory. He can feel _all of this_ , from the thumping in his chest to the way Richard's plush ass covers Misha up, like he could just lose himself in it, get assimilated into Richard's flab.

The lap-dance starts up next, and for all Misha's nerves thank Richard for getting his act together, Misha's not feeling up to being that nice. Not when he can't see Richard—not when he has to feel boxers on him instead of Richard's skin, not when he has to knock his head back into the floor and still can't find an angle where he can see around the blindfold. Not when he tries to get his hands on Richard—not when his arms and palms and fingers itch to hold his boyfriend, feel all up on the two-hundred-six pounds of him and all of that warm, soft bulk—but the metal handcuffs jangled along the bed's frame—

(In doing so, they break Misha's ability to feel this memory happening, send him crashing back into the safety of reality, where it's just a recollection, nothing more.) The leather cuffs didn't make any noise like that; they just barely let Misha's hand go anywhere. He struggled against them, grunted and bucked his hips up into Richard's ass—rubbed up into its lush curve—put all the strength he had into rocking up at Richard, then using that energy to try and get his hands off the bed— _just one grope, I only need to cop one feel, just one and I'll be fine_ —but Misha doesn't get anywhere. Doesn't get anything for his trouble but achingly hard and a throaty laugh from Richard.

Then, there was Richard's nails digging into his hip, scraping along the skin. Then, for a moment, there was nothing, not even the tiniest weight pressing into Misha or bearing down on his hips—Richard must've climbed off, a thought that made Misha whine—and that noise faltered off into a gasp, a moan, as Richard wrapped his lips around Misha's cock.

He tried to keep his thoughts on the right track—tried to remember that this wasn't his failed attempt at blowing Richard, that Richard knew what he was doing—it even got around to feeling good, past the haze of thinking how it felt to choke on Richard's dick… Richard's mouth was warm, tight, wet—the motions of his tongue were deft, agile—a flick here or curling it around the base of Misha's cock here—he didn't gag on Misha, but worked up and down his shaft with the same kind of precision he always had. Hummed, sent those reverberations down to Misha's hips. Bit on Misha's shaft, not enough to hurt, but enough to make Misha groan from the stomach up and buck his hips—

Misha thought he'd explode, if not for the cock-ring, but in the middle of everything, a thought occurred: Richard's hands ventured up to Misha's hips and squeezed; they wormed down his sides and curled up around Misha's thighs… _Oh God, oh fuck—don't touch those too much, no, don't—what if they're porking out, Richard, you shouldn't_ —Misha tried to say something, but it all came out as guttural whining noises, and as quickly as Richard had gotten him all worked up, Richard pulled back, left Misha's dick feeling cold and alone and—Misha heard something heavy scrape along the floor, heard Richard grunting with the effort of pulling it, heard the sound of crinkling plastic and then a squirt—but he didn't feel anything until something warm and sticky dolloped onto the base of his cock—

Richard's fingers wrapped around him, trailed the whatever it was up Misha's shaft—"It's chocolate syrup," he explained right before Misha felt Richard's lips curling around his cock all over again, working up and down (licking everywhere, dragging his teeth along Misha's underside)—by the time Richard finished, Misha would've bet that his dick was fresh-out-of-the-shower clean, no hints of the syrup left at all. That is, he would've made that bet, if his thoughts hadn't been whiting out, fading into a fuzzy haze and getting whipped into submission by the physical sensations of him—the ghost of Richard's tongue working him over, curling and licking and slicking everywhere; the feeling of the floor like it was so far away from him, of his hips knocking back against Richard's mouth but only because Misha tried to make his back touch the carpet; Richard's teeth nipping at Misha's hip ( _oh, Jesus, did he just catch **pudge** in his teeth…_ )

"I know it's not time to eat or anything, babe," Richard finally said, grunting as he rolled away from Misha's hips. From the sound of it, he fished around in somewhere and opened up a jar of something—Misha couldn't think too much about it, though. Next thing he knew, something was spreading over his stomach. Something thick and sticky… "But I mean. I'm working so hard over here, y'know… and you know my thoughts about peanut butter…"

_Oh, God, no—get that off my stomach—why are you even paying attention to my stomach, it's turning into a tummy and it's going to be podgy soon—it's all gross compared to what it used to be, it's gonna turn into a tub of peanut butter—_ Not that Misha managed to say anything. Not that he managed to get any noises out, except for gasping at the first stroke of Richard's tongue up along his middle, whining through the haze in his head as Richard kept licking at him, pausing every so often to work one spot over… He bit at the spots he paused over. He licked them, sure, but even more than that, he wrapped his lips around the spots, caught them between his lips and teeth, _sucking_ the peanut butter off of Misha's skin… But even the warm, wet feeling of being Richard's plate couldn't take Misha's mind off of the thought that Richard would find something disgusting. Something like the start of a chubby boyfriend.

_Even if it's not a full-fledged problem yet, it's gonna be soon, it's not as slim and little as it should be anyway—_ He still didn't say anything, because even with the way his skin crawled under this attention from Richard, Misha couldn't tell if he really wanted Richard to stop or not. He had bugs under his skin, it felt like. And his heart pounded so hard—he felt his pulse in his temples and his neck, in his wrists every time he knocked or tugged at the cuffs, in his dick if he so much as twisted the wrong way. He heard every heartbeat ringing in his ears and, when his palms itched too much with the _fuck, fuck, fuck, I need to touch you, you stupid dick, why can't I fucking touch you_ , Misha curled up his hands, dug at himself with his nails. And it felt good. All of it—even the anxious way that Misha's lungs twisted around in his chest, even the way that his nerves caught fire and felt everything, even Richard's smallest, lightest touches, so much harder, more intense—Misha wanted Richard to stop, but he didn't really—he couldn't tell what he wanted.

And nothing made it make more sense. Everything kept feeling muddled, but good, but maybe he didn't like it, but he liked not liking it, but _oh, God, what's he got to think about my stomach_ , but he trusted that Richard would take care of him—nothing got clearer. even as they repeated the process of Richard smearing things on his middle and licking them off—"How about some frosting now, huh, Babe? I think some chocolate fudge would go nicely with the peanut butter taste…" (The container sounded like Indiana Jones's whip as it cracked open, and Richard groaned against Misha's stomach as he lapped it all up.)

"Well, now I'm feeling like some cream cheese-flavored frosting—might balance all the tastes out nicely…" ( _Why're you bracing yourself on my thighs, though? Can't you balance without touching me there? They're gonna look like tubs of cream cheese if I can't get a handle on them…_ ) "I'm still hungry, though, so how about…" (Richard didn't even tell Misha what came next, but the sounds did the job for him—a crack, then a hiss, the sound of something ebbing out of (probably) a can—whatever it was felt cool and light over Misha's bellybutton and Richard licked it up in two goes. He put more down, chuckling and muttering something about whipped cream when Misha whined at him—and once that round was gone, he sprayed it onto Misha's chest instead, took his time to clean it up, lingered on the work, dragging his tongue around Misha's nipples and crazing his teeth along each one before he pulled back…)

Finally, Misha got his words back, his ability to use them—but what came out definitely wasn't the witty remark that he'd intended: "God, what even's going—what the Hell are you—Richard, stop teasing and just get your fat ass back to fucking me already… I can't—Richard, please, I can't anymore, I—I need you to…" He wanted to groan, but it came out as a whine—undeniably so—and regardless of what it was, his hands spasmed, grasping at the air and opening up again when they came up with nothing. As abruptly as they'd started working, words failed him again—all he got out, when Richard groped at his thigh, was another whine.

"Hey, hey, hey…" Richard said through a laugh, "who's being an uppity little thing tonight—and I do mean emphasis on _little_ …" He dropped a hand, stroked it up and down Misha's stomach, trailing his fingers over all the places Misha swore he could feel the smallest bits of pudge. "Seriously, where do you get off calling anybody, 'fat'—" _Oh, fuck, no; he's noticed—_ "Misha, there's barely anything to you—" _Except where your hands are—_ "You're such a skinny little bitch… At least you're _my_ skinny little bitch. I can do whatever I want to you—and I _want_ to take you apart… Not that there's hardly anything to work with here…"

Richard smacked at Misha's side, thwapped him on the stomach and clawed at his ( _oh, God, no, I'm definitely getting fat there—it's thicker than it should be, his nails **definitely** got caught on something just now, fuck my life_ ) waist. He tut-tutted and Misha's whining, only turning his attention away from Misha to smear something else along Misha's stomach—and the whole time, he didn't say anything about what he was doing. About what he was getting all over Misha and eating up—he had no problems telling Misha how hot he looked like this, or how Richard wanted him to beg— _You haven't been good enough to cum yet… That lip-quivering thing's not doing it for me, either… Maybe you'll get the message if I start fucking you, huh? Take that slutty little hole and claim it all for myself… Maybe then you'll learn to beg, all nice and pretty…_

But he didn't say anything about what Misha wanted to hear. Once he got done dirty-talking and let go of Misha's stomach, he hardly talked at all. All he said was a string of not-quite-insults that still managed to make the back of Misha's neck burn so hot that he felt it turning red: _Skinny little bitch_ (just before catching something that felt like pudge between his teeth); _God, Babe, it's like you're skin and bones_ (while holding onto Misha's hip, while digging his nails into something that was either fat or muscle, but Misha couldn't tell, not really); _Twiggy_ (while curling his hands up on Misha's thighs again, digging his fingers into the flesh and muscle— _but mostly flesh, Jesus Christ, I'm supposed to be a runner, not all swollen and blobby and **gross**_ )… Every word out of Richard's mouth—every movement that he made against Misha—made the world spin a little harder, made something lurch in Misha's chest, jerk around between feeling lead-heavy and like floating off in zero-gravity—

All of it built up and built up, made Misha's cheeks catch fire with the shame (with the shame of not knowing whether or not he liked this, with the shame of knowing that his whole face and neck had to be turning crimson), snowballed until… "Jesus Christ," Richard snapped. "Do you even eat anything? You look like an anorexic stick-figure…"

Richard stretched out on top of Misha again—rubbed up all over him, jostled his own flab against Misha's stomach—the noises hit Misha's ears but didn't register… Not until he felt the cold metal of a dining hall spoon nudging into his lips, smelled the distinct, heavy, sugar-laden scent of chocolate frosting… Misha clenched his mouth shut. Whined. Shook his head. _God, I don't even want to know how many calories are in that shit—it goes in your mouth, Richard, not mine—_ He thought about his safe-word. Thought about throwing it out there. But opening his mouth just got the spoon shoved inside of it. Misha's tongue moved without him telling it to, snaking along the enormous dollop of frosting— _shit, shit, fuck, it tastes so good_ —He curled his lips around the spoon. Licked the frosting off of it…

But he didn't feel himself doing so.

Misha didn't feel anything. Didn't taste anything. When he swallowed, his whole body lurched again—his ears felt full of static and another lurch left him feeling separate from his body—stuck in the darkness of his blindfold, watching for any hints or signs or anything. Looking for them and never finding them. Just mechanically following where Richard led—kissing when Richard kissed him. Recognizing the taste of frosting passing between Richard's mouth and his own. Lifting his hips off the floor when Richard clawed at them, rocking them toward Richard when he felt his boyfriend's thick, slicked-up cock finally press into him—Richard stroked at Misha's dick while fucking him, went in deeper and deeper with each thrust and never managing to make Misha react—not that he didn't want to, not that he wanted to be so still. But his body wasn't his anymore. He told himself to move, or say something, because he needed to get control back—because his heart started racing and his mouth wasn't just quivering, it flopped and chattered but didn't simply quiver, and everything spun around him, everything felt like falling without being able to stop, knowing there were sharp rocks at the bottom but finding nothing to grab onto, finding that his limbs wouldn't move…

Richard finished first and finally let Misha cum—and he couldn't even enjoy that—the shudders coursed through him, all white-hot and sticky and flooding. Explosive. Overwhelming. But not his—not Misha's—he only felt the aftershocks, like they came to him through a filter—and the only noise he made was the faintest sort of whimper, barely even a ghost—

Out of nowhere, the cuffs came off. Misha didn't notice until he felt his wrists hit the floor.

Fingers slipped underneath the scarf and tugged it off—Misha blinked into the light, then up at Richard— _but wait… why're you… what's with that face_ —Richard had his brow knotted up, his nose wrinkled, his mouth hanging open—His hand fell to Misha's shoulder. But not in a smack. In a caress. It took a moment, several more rounds of blinking, but Misha gasped and realized that Richard was talking to him—that was why his lips kept moving… Slowly, Richard coaxed him to his feet. Up into the bed. With Richard's arms around his waist and Richard's belly nuzzling up against his back, with Richard nosing at his hair and pressing featherlight kisses along his jaw, Misha finally started coming down, coming back around.

But he still remembered everything, that feeling of floating outside himself and falling at the same time, that loss of control—it kept teasing up against his awareness of everything, coming out of the woodwork to make his heart pound and make him feel sick—He couldn't tell if he liked it or not, if he'd wanted that or not, if there was any part of that he'd enjoyed or if he was just trying to fool himself—finally, Misha gave up. Gave up on thinking about it, because thinking just made the sensations tug on him harder. He had to reclaim control, no matter what he needed to do—

He wriggled in Richard's arms, rolled over to face him, and whispered into a kiss, "So, how about we order you some pizza for a fuck well done?"

 

Once upon a time, when Mom had been going through one of her, "let's experiment with going to church like normal people!" phases, Misha got to sit through a sermon on Saint Paul's first Letter to the Corinthians. And no offense to Saint Paul, because Misha could kind of dig on the whole, "Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful" thing. Sentiment was nice enough. Celebrating love and telling people to hold it in high esteem, or something like that. And, sure, he could make adjustments for the time period…

But he was still pretty sure that love, _real_ love—or _agape_ , or unconditional love, or whatever Saint Paul had been rabbiting on about—was more like the smile he wore as he stretched out in the backseat of Richard's car and wrapped his hands around an enormous, cardboard Starbucks cup, took a deep whiff of the blacker-than-the-deepest-pits-of-Hell coffee—the drink he hadn't even needed to order, Richard had just brought it for him. _Because I knew you'd probably be a while and that you'd probably want something to cheer you up once you and Jenny were ready to go back home_ —as though this was actually some kind of valid explanation. As though it actually explained anything.

"More like, 'because I'm made of awesomeness and when I was born, I, like… like, fell into the vat of superpowers and glitter and there's nobody ever who's better than me at anything,' that's what it's more like," Misha informed Richard, trying to ignore the way both he and Jensen arched their eyebrows at him, just in the name of insisting on how amazing Richard was. Tightening his hold on the coffee cup, Misha tried to hold an unruffled expression. But his will wavered every time one of them so much as moved, and finally, he gave in to the smile tugging at his lips, to the tickling in his ribcage. Misha doubled over, laughing until his sides ached, and Richard didn't set off driving until Misha had settled down, gotten himself comfortable and assured them that everything was cool, everything was fine, he wanted to go home now, please.

Moving around was still difficult for Misha, outside of using his arms and scooting on the seat, trying to stay nestles up against the wall in the way least likely to result in falling off his perch and injuring himself further… Aside from the fact that the shot of hospital painkillers left his entire brain submerged in a haze, the whole broken leg thing threw monkey-wrench after monkey-wrench into any plans Misha'd made, even just the little ones, like showering and going to class normally—fractured tibia, that's what they'd said in the emergency room. Nothing about it sounded okay. The crutches that he dropped to the car's floor were a giant pain in his ass and he already didn't want to put up with them for another twenty-two weeks… The things _sucked_ and Misha wanted them to _go away_.

Understandably, he guessed. After all, he'd only had a cast on his left leg for half-an-hour; before getting the crutches, he'd mostly been hobbling around and leaning on Jensen's shoulder, or else flopped in a chair and getting wheeled around by Handsome Nurse Sebastian. Misha was still just grateful that he'd worn a set of loose-fitting yoga pants for Jensen's insane idea of playing Ultimate Frisbee in the middle of fucking January. That, because of this, he hadn't needed to wriggle out of a pair of jeans and throw on some hospital sweats or something, just to get his leg wrapped up in fiberglass and padding. Or whatever the Hell went into these things.

For the most part, Jensen and Richard behaved. They kept the radio playing classical music, since nothing about it ever struck Misha as funny. At least, he was too, too out of it to remember any stories about which composers had been the rock stars of their respective periods, which ones had debauched all the women they could get their dicks near, or anything else that was even remotely interesting—and since just a minute-and-a-half of NPR sent him into a giggle-fit, which sent him slipping around on the seat again… well. They couldn't pick just anything to listen to. The wrong choice and they'd risk messing up his leg, which, as Misha saw fit to remind them several times, would be bad.

"‘m already gonna be holed up for twenty-two weeks on this thing, can you even _believe_ that, it's going to be _Hell_ ," he whined as Jensen and Richard helped him scoot out of the car, crutch into the dorm, and hobble up the flight of stairs to his and Jensen's room. "‘s most of the semester, and—and, and, _and_! Why's the elevator got to be broken all the time? Why's it gotta be winter?"

Richard snickered, leaned on the wall and waited for Jensen to hurry up and open the door. "Well, babe," he drawled, arms crossed over his chest, "I'm gonna guess it has something to do with how the seasons have to change, and our geographical location—since it's sort of northern, and… I think we're pretty close to the forty-fifth parallel? Jenny!" Punctuated by Richard smacking the wall. "Jeeeennyyyyy. Jenny from the Block, are we anywhere near the forty-fifth parallel?"

Jensen answered him by letting the door fling into the wall as it opened. "Call me that again and I start cock-blocking, _Dick_."

Richard met that threat with a mock-gasp. "You _wouldn't_."

Which earned him a devilish grin, a free show of all of Jensen's perfect teeth. " _Try me_."

" _Fuck you BOTH_ ," Misha managed to snap through the laughter, hobbling past them and into the room. "Just because you're both cute doesn't mean you're allowed to keep me from my medically prescribed rest and relaxation." He paused harassing them for just long enough to flop into bed and get situated with a couple pillows under his bum leg. "Now, who wants to be my designated fetcher of things?"

Maybe he could've come up with a better term for that, but fuck it. Pain medication made everything fuzzy, and soon enough, Misha had Richard sidled up in bed with him, nuzzling up to his side, curling an arm around his waist, and giving Misha the best angle from which to grope at Richard's belly.

 

Once upon a time, while over lunch with his boyfriend and his best friend, Misha barely managed to avoid detection—barely managed to stay in the kinky closet. Not like he really thought that Jensen would judge him, or stop being his friend over something like this…

But even with how noticeably ( _heavier, wider, bigger, softer, sexier_ ) fat Richard got, even with how much Misha hated having to keep his hands to himself at any point, even with the way he held onto a kiss in the middle of the dining hall (not to mention with Jensen sitting _right there_ next to them), Misha couldn't shake the knowledge that this was probably kind of weird. That his and Richard's kink wasn't exactly something most people would brag about having.

That, on the other hand, it was probably something Misha should've been ashamed of, and that most people would've called him a freak for _encouraging_ Richard's plan to gain so much weight. Not that Jensen had ever _been_ most people, but even with the, "take as you need them, but take at least one every day, to keep the swelling in your leg down," pain meds clouding most of his inhibitions, Misha didn't want to risk losing his best friend over some difference of opinion on kinks—even if it probably wouldn't have happened, the threat was loud and serious enough to shake him.

On a practical level, all the Vicoprofen managed to do was axe Misha's ability to give a fuck. It made him care less about what kind of calorie-laden lunch he was eating (much less that Richard had dished it up for him, and that Richard's ideas about portion sizes could be summed up in one word: _large_ ). Care less about who watched or dropped eaves while he nuzzled up on Richard's side, told him to keep going through his third plate off the buffet because he was doing so well and still had to get his dessert. Care less about even paying lip-service to the, "hands to himself," rule—at least, judging by how he palmed at Richard's belly under the table.

Misha couldn't even bother to care about how he blatantly stared at Richard (at his gorgeous, plump ass and how it strained at his jeans) while he made his way back over to the buffet—with the instruction to get whatever kind of dessert he wanted as long as it took up two plates, and bring back another brownie for Misha. Shit, Misha didn't notice he _was_ staring—not until Jensen asked something or other that… Misha didn't really hear, but it sounded like it might've been about kitten hearts and staying out too late.

"Huh?" he said, tilting his head and blinking at Jensen.

Jensen sighed. Snickered fondly, rolling his eyes like he'd done a lot of since Misha had gotten his prescription filled. "I said, 'so, is it just me, or is Richard gaining weight'?" (It took Misha a moment to think this over, but he nodded. Shrugged. Supposed that yeah, Richard had put on a few pounds.) "…Yeah, and Hell's just a few degrees too hot."

Misha claimed not to know what Jensen meant by that, but even trying to spit that words out made him start laughing.

"You're lucky you're cute when you're stoned," Jensen informed him with a smile, "or I'd have to register a complaint about my best friend being unable to hold a proper conversation." He paused just long enough to reach across the table and ruffle Misha's hair before asking in a half-whisper, "So, just between us, Meesh… How much weight _has_ Richard packed on while dating you?"

"Lowering our voices like this makes us sound like _secret agents_ ," Misha announced, grinning proudly. "And my fat-ass boyfriend is up tooooo… two-hundred-and-eleven pounds as of yesterday morning. All of them sexy sex-ass-ing-est sexy fat, he's…" ( _Oh, God, no—cover your ass, cover you ass—_ ) "He's. …I mean, not like we really pay attention to it or anything, he's just trying to keep an eye on it because, uh, his…"

( _Fuck, what kind of excuses do normal people have for keeping an eye on their weight? Fuck, fuck, why can't they have lessons at the community center on how to act normal?_ ) "…Because he's also not really dieting and he doesn't want to, like, end up at three-hundred pounds and have no idea how he got there or gain too fast, it's not intentional, I don't have a kink or anything, I just love my boyfriend for himself. Not his weight. I don't really have thoughts about that because it's not my business. …Yeah."

As though this made everything he'd just said the undeniable, perfect truth, Misha nodded emphatically, repeated his _yeah_ two more times.

Jensen just stared at Misha. Arched his eyebrows. Made Misha's arms start itching with anxiety, with the thought, _oh, fuck, what if he knows? Did I just tell him_ —"Okay, cool, you don't have a kink… Yeah, that's cool," Jensen said. ( _Nailed it!_ Misha didn't even try to hide his relieved sigh.) …But then Jensen started looking pensive. His whole face darkened like he had a thundercloud hanging over it and he sighed, "How the Hell does he weigh less than I do but _look_ so much fatter?"

"Well, it helps that he's, like, half-a-foot shorter than you, Dum-Dum Pop," Misha informed Jensen with a shrug. "He's only barely five-eight, Jensen, and you've got, like… broader shoulders and more muscle than he ever did. And about the only working out he does is fucking me into the mattress, soooo…" Misha had no idea where he wanted to go with that thought. Blowing a raspberry at Jensen made sense enough, though.

It also got his nose tweaked, and once Misha was done whining, Jensen chuckled, "So, either getting laid gave you a concussion or those are just _really_ good drugs, because, I mean… Do I look like I work out to you?"

"More than Richard works out," Misha drawled, gingerly nudging his good leg in Jensen's direction, knocking his foot against Jensen's with the grace and tact of a wrecking ball. "You play Ultimate Frisbee and shit, that's totally like working out. What the fuck do I care if you look like you work out, anyway? You look sexy to me whether you go to the gym or not—you can even scratch the, 'to me' part of that. You just plain look sexy all the time, okay? Jensen Sex-Ass Ackles, that's what they should call you."

For whatever reason, this compliment didn't quite stick its landing.

Instead of smiling and having his self-esteem bolstered like Misha wanted, Jensen blushed. Shuffled awkwardly in his seat and slouched his shoulders more than a bit. "Yeah, _right_ ," he muttered under his breath, into his next forkful of lasagna. "All two-thirty-seven pounds of my ass are _so_ fucking sexy… Shit, why'm I even eating this, I should've gotten a damn salad…"

"You're eating it because you're hungry and it tastes good, asshole." Misha didn't _intend_ to sound mean—at least, he definitely didn't intend to get the kicked puppy pouting face that Jensen gave him—but… "So, like, I used to think that the stupidest thing I'd ever heard was Vicki telling somebody that she's not smart? She was just trying to be modest, but it was still stupid to hear, but that's not the point because _you_ …" Just in case Jensen missed that Misha was talking to him, Misha pointed at him.

And stuck his finger all up in Jensen's personal space, rotating it around and hovering close to his nose (but never quite poking it). …He forgot why this was necessary, after a moment and getting bored with it, but it'd definitely been necessary, at some point. Misha was sure of it. Just like he was sure of everything he said next: "You calling yourself not sexy, though… That about takes the stupid cake, Jenny. Okay? Because you're totally sexy."

"Yeah, maybe I _was_ … until I let my ass get up to two-hundred-thirty-seven freaking pounds. Until I got, like, this… big, fat belly, and my big, fat love-handles, and y'know, got them all from pigging out and sitting around on my big, fat ass…" He cut himself off with a sigh, looking down at his lap. (Conveniently missing out on seeing the way that Misha had knotted up his brow and started gaping.) "'m sorry to take this out on you, Meesh. 'specially when you're stoned. It's just… I mean, it's been nagging at me since Christmas, y'know?"

"What, sorry—don't be sorry, being stoned is boring anyway—I'll go sober up my head in the water fountain if you want me sober for this—what kind of best friend would I be if I didn't listen to your problems—wait, what happened at Christmas?"

That whole mess sounded like a train-wreck of syllables and nonsense to Misha, but judging from how Jensen sighed, he managed to make some kind of sense of it. "Long story short? My mom and Danneel happened at Christmas." He shrugged like this was enough explanation, but went on when Misha asked what the Hell that meant: "Well, I'd put on more weight from the start of the semester, and… it's not like I don't _know_ I'm getting fat? But I didn't think I was up to…"

Even if Misha couldn't see Jensen's hands, he could guess that his best friend spent this pause prodding at his stomach. "And anyway," Jensen sighed, picking up as though he hadn't stopped at all. "I couldn't hardly eat anything at Christmas without them harping on me, and my mom dragged me into a doctor's appointment like, the day after New Year's—and I was all the way up to two-forty-two by then, so, like. I dropped the five pounds because my mom started _crying_ , and my dad was all, _why're you doing this to her_ , so I followed her diet idea thing, and I worked out with Danny, but now I haven't been eating right and my ass is gonna get fat all over again, and—"

" _Jensen!_ " Misha snapped. (This time, he definitely meant to snap. Jensen was rambling, and hearing him hate on himself so hard made Misha want to drop-kick Danneel's favorite yappy lap-dog out a fucking window.) "Listen to me: your weight? Is _none. of their. fucking. business_. I don't care if they're your family and you love them. It's _not their business_. How do _you_ feel about it?"

"Well, I mean… It's not like I mind entirely—I mean… I fucking _hate_ being on diets, and I suck at going to the gym, and like… There's probably about sixty or seventy reasons too many I've been single since Cory dumped my ass? And they're all, y'know… uh. My fat—"

"Cory," Misha huffed, "is an irrelevant sleazebag mc-douche-weasel, and he's going to die cold and alone and probably in a ditch or a gutter because he's a stupid walking cliche with legs." (Around the pain meds fuzz, Misha supposed this might've been redundant, but he pressed on anyway.) "…I'm sorry, Jenny, I know you really liked him, but. I'm sorry in a way where I'm totally not sorry at all because he was a _douchebag_ , okay. He didn't know Star Trek, or comics, he couldn't tell the difference between a simile and a metaphor, he condescended to both of us _and_ Vicki—"

"Jesus, you're not still pissy about him telling Vicki that Professor X made Hank McCoy go all… blue and fuzzy, and calling her a bitch… are you?"

"Of course I'm still pissy about it! He called my sister a _bitch_ —nobody calls my sister a bitch but me, okay? And I only do it because she says I'm allowed. …Plus, he was fucking _wrong_ and being an asshole about it—"

"And now you sound more like you want to be mad at him than tell me… whatever's so important that you're getting in a fit about Cory instead of telling me—"

"Whatever's so important is that you're _fucking amazing_ , you total dumb-ass," Misha huffed, thumping on the table.

(Out of nowhere, and only as a consequence of the clattering sound of silverware and plates, it occurred to Misha that he was leaning… rather close to Jensen's face. Kissing distance close. Misha swallowed thickly, glancing down at Jensen's lips, and tried to press on like he wasn't thinking about kissing his best friend.)

"Jensen, seriously…" he sighed. "I hate complimenting people to their faces, so that I'm telling you you're amazing? Is huge for me. And I'm doing it because you are, for real, _amazing_. You're smart. And you're funny. You're creative, and talented, and _nice_ —and not like fake-nice the way Vicki gets when she wants to kill something, you're a total sweetheart and you're _genuinely_ nice. And you do this… adorable little victory dance when you beat me at Mario Kart, I can't do it, but it's like… It's precious and wonderful, and then, on top of that, you're _unfairly_ gorgeous…"

(Misha tried to keep his eyes locked on Jensen's, so he didn't get the idea that Misha was just talking out his ass or something—but Jensen's expression was so inscrutable. Confusion in the knot of his brow. Some strange sort of sadness in the sad puppy eyes. And maybe a glint of something else, a hint that there might've been some reason for his mouth hanging open the way it was… Misha couldn't really tell.)

"And if someone can't see any of that because of your weight? If somebody's only gonna date you for your body and how fantastic it is, then… fuck them. Not in the good way. Because they don't deserve somebody like you. You deserve somebody who'll treat you right, and make you happy, and tell you when you're being a dumb-ass but only out of love… Not some jerk. Not someone who'll break your heart or walk all over you or shit…"

( _God fucking—Misha, stop talking. Stop talking and back up, get out of Jensen's space—no, no, wait, how is there even anywhere closer to lean? Misha, for Christ's sake, this is your best friend—your best friend who got text message dumped over break, so he's vulnerable, and you're being a manipulative little shit—you're practically taking advantage of him—fuck, fuck, stop it, no, get out of his face—Misha, stop it, you are not allowed to kiss your best fucking friend—_ )

"Hey, guys—"

Richard's voice shocked through the haze like lightning. His tray clattered to the table, followed by the thud of him dropping onto the bench. Misha startled, paling as he backed away from Jensen, returned to his and Richard's side of the table—fortunately, Richard's tray was loaded up with what looked like most of the buffet's dessert options. Three plates' worth of baked goods (brownies, cookies, muffins, two cupcakes with jelly beans on top of the frosting, and a stray doughnut), plus a bowl that's generously filled with chocolate ice cream. This way, Misha's eyebrows had an excuse to try and leap off his face.

Richard blinked at him. "'m I interrupting something important?"

Misha shook his head without even thinking about it. Leaned into Richard's personal space and stole a kiss. "We were just saying that Cory's an asshole and Jensen deserves better and talking about how scorching hot your ass is—"

Richard cut Misha off by stealing a kiss back, and when he pulled away, he stuck a brownie between Misha's open lips. Smirked. Carried on like nothing had happened. Misha stifled his sigh of relief and chewed, tried to eat quickly so he could get back into his groove of encouraging Richard—and all Misha thought, all he _could_ think, boiled down to two words: _crisis averted_.


	3. My has concrete feet; my love's an iron ball.

"So we're in a bad mood today, then?"

Misha sighs and nuzzles up on Jensen's side, nods against his shoulder and doesn't try to deny himself the warm rush of satisfaction as Jensen curls his pudgy arm tighter around Misha's shoulders. He tries to play it cool, but still lets himself feel it. No harm, no foul, as long as Misha just keeps acting like they're really just here, watching episodes of Star Trek. Like he's not remembering all sorts of crap he'd much rather forget. Like he doesn't want his (taken, madly in love with Jared) best friend.

Like he's just idly sipping on his bottle of (full-carb, full-calorie, not-even-remotely-diet-friendly because Jensen wants to get fat and can't go wasting space in his stomach on that watered-down, better-for-you crap) beer, not thinking about how many empty calories he's ingested today from alcohol alone or how he shouldn't have had the pizza either or how _God fucking dammit, Misha, this isn't going to help you take the weight off—you're such a damn fatty at heart, you always have been—are we just going to give up on dieting and get huge all over again? …Well, we will if you keep drinking that. Lap it up, lard-ass._

Under any normal circumstances, he wouldn't go anywhere near Jensen's beer—this godawful fucking beer that's like begging for his waist to get thicker, pudgier—but Misha's finished the lite beer he keeps for himself. He got in the liquor for a while. Had another cocktail… but, apparently, it's not okay for Misha to just drink Bloody Marys all day. There's too much alcohol in them and Jensen disapproves. Even wore his _I'm just disapproving because I care about you_ worried face while insisting on the three glasses of water Misha's chugged, then made Misha switch to beer for a while.

All of which is accomplishing what Jensen wants—at least, Misha assumes that Jensen wants him to avoid getting totally shit-faced—but it's making Misha want to blow something up just to piss off their neighbors. The slight buzz that's made his current foray into consciousness tolerable is fading away into a frustration and awareness that Misha _doesn't want_ … At least he gets snuggles out of this crap. He'd need to pitch a fit if Jensen didn't compensate for making him be even vaguely sober.

"I'm just sort of confused by this, I guess? By the sulking?" Jensen says, turning down the volume on _The Trouble With Tribbles_. "Because it seemed to me like you were okay last night? You know, like… yeah, okay, you had a slow start there, but… after you really got your bearings? …Got having fun at the party instead of stuck up in your own noggin?"

"Yeah, well, it's stupid Jeff's stupid fault," Misha grumbles, finishing up his drink and twirling the empty bottle between his hands. To Jensen's protest— _But you like hooking up with Jeff…?_ —Misha just shrugs. Supposes that yeah, he does. "I don't wanna talk about it, though." Except, apparently, his mouth has other ideas ( _just like it does about fucking food_ ): "He got kinda handsy while we defiled Jackass and Bigger Jackass's bed. Like, kinda handsy in _places_ —like… God, Jensen, like in the _wrong_ places. Is all I mean."

"'The wrong places' meaning like…" Jensen trails off with a pout. Gets that brow-furrowing kitten look where all the grinding gears in his head become totally obvious. Finally, he just gives up and points at Misha's stomach. "Like that kind of wrong places?"

Even though his t-shirt's not remotely riding up on him—it's not even fitting all that snuggly—Misha reflexively reaches up to tug the hem down. Nodding, he feels himself flush all hot and pink, mumbles a _yeah, basically_ and intends to leave it at that, but… Then there's too much quiet that settles in between him and Jensen. Too much visible thinking going over on in Jensen's head. "I wouldn't have even minded the touching all that much if he'd kept his stupid, fuck off mouth shut," Misha says. "But noooo. He just had to go giving me some… feel-good, every body is beautiful, 'I read this in a self-help book so it must be true and no, really, you're not fat' speech—"

"Well, you're _not_ , dork—"

"Irrelevant, Jenny," Misha huffs and holds up his free hand. Obediently, Jensen shuts up, lets Misha go back to word-vomiting all over him. Since the alcohol in his system seems to think this is the best plan ever. "The point here is less like my weight specifically, and more like… Apparently, I exude some pheromone that makes people want to take care of me. Which would be great if I wanted it, but all I really want is to get my weight back down where I like it and have people _respect_ that decision, so…"

Jensen stays quiet for another long moment, until Misha gets kind of used to just hearing his breathing and the way Spock and Bones argue with each other—and when Jensen does speak up again, it's a bucket of cold water to the face: "Well, I mean… I can't say for Jeff or anybody else? But speaking strictly for me, Meesh? It's less about not respecting what you wanna do with your own body, and more… just wanting you to be okay. You know?"

Misha's stomach turns. His whole face scrunches up, and the blush comes back in full force. "But I am okay," he says with emergency room urgency. "I'm fine, Jensen. I'm totally okay—who the fucking Hell said I'm _not okay_?"

"Nobody said you're not okay! It's just… I mean, it's all like… y'know?" (Misha starts to say that no, he doesn't know, but he figures Jensen probably doesn't need that getting on his nerves right now.) "I mean… Because even when you're cool with where your weight's at, Meesh, you just… Skinny or not, I have to twist your arm to make you eat a fucking cookie, for Christ's sake. I just don't even know…"

While Jensen puzzles out the worse he wants, Misha drops his head back onto Jensen's shoulder. He tries to ignore those three words in there— _skinny or not_ —because rationally, he knows that Jensen didn't mean anything by them. Jensen's frustrated with words right now and maybe misspeaking. Because Jensen would never intentionally say something like that—not to Misha, not knowing what he knows. Misha sighs. Burrows closer to his best friend's side like he might be able to hide inside of Jensen's embrace, zone out, and not have to hear it when—

"You're just so hard on yourself, you know?" Jensen says through a vague, throaty whine. "And it's not like a sometimes thing—it's like an _all the time_ thing. And it's not all a weight thing, either, because you're the most perfectionist-y person I know, but like… That's where it comes out a lot of the time? And you're _better_ now, right? Than you were? …but you still do stuff like. Freak out about eating a dish of ice cream. One time. After nothing but rabbit food and grilled chicken for weeks. And, like, a tiny dish of ice cream, not something you have to go do a mile-run over—"

"Maybe I freak out so much because I _know_ how many calories and grams of sugar are in that shit—sure, it's delicious, but—"

"See? Just like that!" (Technically speaking, Misha doesn't see—but he doesn't suspect bringing that up would end well. He wants to protest that he wasn't even freaking out, but he walked right into this. If Jensen were anybody else, he'd suspect trickery.) "Meesh, you're just… I want you to be doing better, you know?"

"I _am_ doing better—I'm _fine_ —"

"So then why—I guess I just don't get why it means so much to you? The weight thing? Like, if you're not sick anymore?" Jensen sighs. Doesn't pick up again until Misha looks at him—which is a kick in the fucking stomach, seeing Jensen's green eyes all wobbly and concerned. "Meesh, if you're fine, then why does one number ruin your life so much… I mean, you're too amazing for one-word descriptions, so… pinning everything you think about yourself on one _number_?"

"Honestly? I don't even really understand it either, Jenny. I wish I did, but it's just… Anxiety disorders aren't really rational like that or anything." It's not a _lie_ , but it's not exactly true—and more importantly, Misha guesses it's probably what Jensen wants to hear.

_Misha_ wants to hear some confirmation that he can get as drunk as he wants to be without a risk of groping his best friend—definitely not Jensen asking him to please, please, _please_ come and ask for anything he needs, anything Jensen can help with—and the last thing Misha wants to feel is exactly how he does. Huge. So fat that he should be suffocating under his own weight. And all of these fucking memories that his alcohol was supposed to _take the Hell away_ , rushing back around him like they're happening all over again.

 

Of course, nothing in Misha's life has ever really managed to be a fairytale—not even doctor-ordered resting. Problems arise after the first three (almost four) weeks of that relaxation… Not that Misha remembers the specifics of said weeks. At least, not that well.

Oh, he remembers that, out of the blue, everyone wanted to do things for him. And that, for a day or two, he tried to insist on handling things himself… But he gave up, eventually, and let Vicki get his lunch for him, let Richard and Jensen screw around and try to make him breakfast in the microwave… Aside from that, though, there were the sweets. _Those_ really came out of nowhere, but… Vicki and Danneel pooled their cash to buy Misha a, "get well soon!" basket of assorted cookies and muffins. More than a few different people in his classes got the idea to buy him cupcakes from the bakery down in town. Mark got Misha a cake—a Devil's Food cake with fudge frosting—and specifically ordered Jensen and Richard to, "keep their grubby little hands off of it."

And then there's Misha's boyfriend. Although, allegedly, he'd never cooked before, Richard started borrowing the oven in one of the student apartments that some music friend of his lived in. He started baking and bringing his concoctions over to Jensen and Misha's place. And maybe it was love, or maybe it was the pain medication that he was on doctor's orders to take (because apparently, it'd keep his leg from swelling on top of killing any aches)—but whatever it was, Misha didn't even bother asking after the nutritional information.

This bites him in the ass one night, right as he gets himself out of the shower, leaning on the wall and using the shower curtain's bar as a balance as he lifts his bum leg out of the tub. Slumped against the door back into his room, Misha starts toweling off, and then he catches a glimpse of his reflection, and sees the incontrovertible evidence of just how badly he's slipped up. He can't run or hide from it now—not with it sitting right there on his waistline. Where, in January, he had a (mostly) flat stomach, Misha's started accumulating _pudge_ ; and although it doesn't look like much, it's still proof that his stomach's anything but flat, by now. There's just enough of an outward pooch to be noticeable. Evidence of maybe another ten-pound gain, at most. Not bad, but nevertheless a problem.

He frowns down at the _bulge_ sitting on his waistline, prods at it and feels his knuckle sink into some soft pudge; he repeats this process a few times before finally putting. His good leg wobbles a bit beneath him, all out of anxiety (maybe a bit out of the strain of holding him up), but Misha stays standing, lets go of his stomach to put one put on the wall, leaning for support, and limps closer to the mirror, just because he has to be sure that this is real—that he's actually looking at a _real_ change in his appearance… When he can't be sure, Misha wanders back into his and Jensen's room, just meaning to ask Richard what he thinks.

But, somehow, "do I look like I'm putting on weight?" leads to kissing, which leads to groping, which leads to as much rolling around the bed as they can get and, eventually, to nudity. They have to be mindful of everything, with Richard's own increasing weight and Misha's bum leg—but they work it out in the best way they've found. This generally means they fuck while sitting up, with Misha slumped against the wall, the full weight of Richard's expanding ass crowding down on his lap,

"You shouldn't worry about your weight so much, Sexy," Richard manages to get out, when they're in a post-coital round of cuddling and afterglow. "You're skinny, for fuck's sake. Unless you're gonna start worrying about being too skinny—which, thankfully, you're also not—then chill out. No big deal, not an issue."

 

The sick thing is that Misha believes Richard when he says that the weight thing's not an issue. That it'll _never_ be an issue. He's stuck in yoga pants, sweats, and pajamas while his cast's on, anyway, so Misha assumes it's safe ozone out and just… listen to his boyfriend. Not worry about his weight or anything—which, of course, comes to bite him in his expanding ass.

When the cast comes off in March, Misha knows for sure that he's gained weight and a considerable amount of it—some part of him doesn't even want to get the cast off because it means having to acknowledge this fact and face the worst kind of reality. He might not have specific numbers to describe how bad his problem's getting, but all the signs are there—the softening around his edges fills out into more than just a stray bit of pudge that he's trying (and mostly failing) not to think of as love-handles. That Richard can't stop fucking groping, no matter how many times Misha whines at him to _please leave it alone_.

Even standing up, Misha's gone and gotten himself a belly—not a big one, by any means; he can mostly hide it with a sweatshirt or one of his atrocious sweaters, and it looks even smaller when he's standing next to his fat boyfriend. But it's still _there_. Pooching out from where, if not _flat_ , his stomach at least used to be _slender_ —not anymore, Misha supposes (with more than a hint of bitterness). His stomach's starting to stick up from his middle when he's flat on his back, a fact that makes his cheeks flush and the back of his neck burn with shame.

And Misha knows that it could be worse—his whole situation could be so much worse. Never mind his belly. His belly's all _soft_ and _jiggly_ and it has a _curve_ to it… He could probably wear his pants underneath the thing's lower curve if he didn't have the dignity not to go around, showing it off.

Not that he gets too much help from any of his other clothes. His t-shirts all ride up on him now, leaving a strip of skin showing where they fail to meet his waistband, straining around his _bulging_ middle—his tubby stomach, the increasingly plush hips that he can never ignore because Richard always needs to have his hands on them… Richard's kept the tape measure hidden in his and Matt's room unless it's being used on his, so Misha doesn't even know how far away from thirty inches his waist has gotten. He just assumes—based on his expanding ass and everything else—that he's pretty fucking far off from ideal. He doesn't want to think about trying to get into his jeans again.

His cheeks are fuller (if only slightly), his arms a little more padded—they're the only parts of him that are mostly unchanged and Misha takes some degree of comfort in that. On the other hand, though? His thighs tell another story entirely, and it's even worse than it seems just because Misha _prided_ himself on his legs. They used to be long, and fit, and toned, and the closest thing he had to perfect. As far as now's concerned? Any muscle Misha had from running still lurks there, sort of—but it's slackened up in addition to the weight he's put on… Maybe they're not touching, yet. Consolation prize, Misha guesses, and a pretty shitty one, since they're still so _flabby_ and they crowd together now, with hardly any gap between them… And the way he's getting _fat_ isn't even the worst part.

No. No, the worst part is getting dismissed out-of-hand whenever he tries to talk about this, whenever he so much as implies that he needs to start working out again, once he's gotten the all-clear from his doctor. Richard and Jensen don't say anything helpful, they just tell him he's not fat, even if he doesn't say anything about his weight—even if he just tries to have a salad for lunch or rolls his eyes when they bring him one that's drowned in dressing. Vicki tells Misha not to worry so much. Shepp always tries to turn the conversation into something about other any other anxieties Misha has, like it's not valid enough to care that he's turning into a fucking butterball land-whale.

The worst part is having all these things grate on his nerves like on a block of cheese, with no outlet for all the stress, until the cast's off and a nurse tells him Dr. Williams just wants to see how Misha's doing, weight-wise, readies the exam room scale, and Misha snaps at her:

"I'm not getting on that—just write, 'fat.' That'll tell him everything he needs to know."

Next thing he knows, Misha gets two smacks on the back of his head—one from Richard and one from Vicki, who follows it up by telling him to _behave_ because she's morally compromised and she knows where he sleeps. Rolling his eyes, Misha cooperates—he can't even regret weighing in at one-ninety-four (or lying to the nurse, telling her he weighed one-seventy-five before plumping out the way he has). He can't regret these things too much because, finally? He's gotten vindication. Indisputable proof that he's been right the whole time—and they can't take that away from him. Not even if Richard and Vicki do their best to ignore Misha saying so on the drive back to campus.

 

Just as he swore, Misha goes on a diet once he has his leg back. Complication: he's still feeding Richard on a regular basis, and Misha gets _hungry_. He gets hungry so much easier now and it takes longer to satisfy himself, like he's getting kicked in the ass by his awareness of how much bigger he is. And on a rational level, Misha knows that he _has_ to eat, which calms his nerves enough to make him give in to temptation and overeat, despite how often he reminds himself to _be good_. Not to think about the hunger or the food, but to focus on the increasingly unreachable goal of being able to button his jeans around his waist, instead of underneath his pudgy stomach. Being able to feel comfortable in his jeans at all.

True to his word on another count, Misha starts working out again after the cast comes off, now that he finally _can_. Complication: he has to have a walking brace on, to make sure that he doesn't do something stupid and hurt himself all over again. He has to maneuver around the brace. He has limits on what he's allowed to do, what he can still do comfortably after two months on his officially chubby (because Richard won't let Misha call himself fat, even though it's true) ass—and whatever else comes up, the end result's the same: Misha's attempt to get his body back falls flat on its ass; instead of losing weight, he gets the opposite result.

By the time he and Richard leave for their spring break road trip, Misha's gained another five pounds—he's hovering dangerously close to two-hundred, just one pound off, which is far, _far_ too close for his liking—and before he flops into Richard's passenger seat, he pays Vicki in Girl Scout Cookies to smuggle some of his old chubby clothes back from home. If he's going to be a big fat-ass for a while, Misha might as well have clothes that fucking _fit_.

Purportedly, he and Richard are going to spend their two weeks of freedom in Martha's Vineyard with Richard's aunt and some of his cousins. In practice, they ignore Misha's Google Maps directions and get lost on purpose, just because they can. They probably shouldn't sleep in the backseat, much less fool around or fuck in it, not with Misha's messed up leg—but this fact doesn't stop them. Between Misha being tall and leggy, and the two-hundred-thirty(-one-and-a-half) pounds that Richard's up to, it's a tight squeeze, but they make it work.

One night, they pull over and sleep in a Walmart parking lot, splayed across the backseat, with Misha stretched out and resting his head in Richard's lap. Another night, they get shit-faced in some out-of-the-way, middle-of-nowhere cowboy version of a gay bar and Richard has to drag Misha away from a cat-fight with a drag queen by the collar of his shirt. They fool around in the backseat, and in a (mostly pretty clean) gas station bathroom, and outside on some town's little league baseball diamond. Somehow, they manage to turn a five-and-a-half-hour drive into a three-day adventure by sheer force of genius. Or stupidity.

…Whatever, they're basically the same thing with Richard and Misha, anyway. And once they actually get to Richard's aunt's place, Misha wishes that they'd taken longer. Dinah's lovely—a big woman (not fat, as such, just as tall as Misha, and broad in frame, and just _large_ ; she doesn't merely occupy space as much as she draws all the emptiness around her up and uses it to make herself that much more imposing, which isn't helped by the loud floral prints she's fond of wearing), and affectionate (she doesn't even ask why Misha and Richard are several days late, she just hugs Richard, pats him on the belly and beams at "how much he's grown," and then scoops Misha up and, for the first time since he started piling on weight, manages to make him feel small)—and, unfortunately for Misha's diet, she's a fabulous cook.

Food seems to be everywhere in her house, things that she's made as well as store-bought snacks, and going off how Misha's plate gets refilled any time he empties it, whether or not he says that he wants more, generous second helpings of meals seem _mandatory_ rather than just encouraged. It comes as no surprise to Misha that all three of Richard's cousins look to be overweight, if not obese. He tries to take some kind of comfort in how he doesn't even need to encourage Richard to take thirds or even fourths—or to clean up Misha's food when he insists that no, really, he's quite full—in what this will mean for Richard's waistline…

But Misha just can't stop thinking about his own instead. After just three days at Dinah's, he already feels heavier. After the first five, he stops even vaguely protesting the seconds he gets dished up, and only raises his voice a little bit whenever he gets unwanted thirds. On the night of the sixth, he takes Richard up to bed, meaning to weigh him, get a measurement of his waist, and then have sex—but instead, they get distracted making out, and then, in some stupor of ice cream sundae and wonky sexual neurochemistry, Richard has to fuck it up by asking why Misha's so hung up on his weight.

"Like, seriously, babe—why's it matter to you so much?"

Misha's answer is so simple that he flops onto his back and delivers it to the ceiling, instead of looking Richard in the eye: "I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm not trying to push you or anything—I just wanna _understand_ , babe." With a heavy sigh, he rolls onto his back, pulls his hands away from Misha at all—and when Misha sits up and slumps against the headboard, he notices Richard palming at his own stomach, pinching his own pudge. "I just… I want you to be happy, you know," Richard says, "but you're _not_ —"

"Maybe I'm not happy because I'm _getting fat_ and I _don't like it_." Misha sighs and knocks his head back into the wood. Then another time, because the first round doesn't hurt enough. "I've only said that about a thousand times since I started gaining weight and I don't get what's so hard to understand about it. And I still don't want to talk about this."

"Well, I _do_ want to talk about it." Somehow, even from his current position (which looks so ready for them to just fuck that Misha wished they could let this stupid subject go and do that instead), Richard manages to scrunch up his face enough that Misha's heart sinks in his chest and his whole face and neck itch with shame and guilt. "It's not just a weight thing with you, babe—I know you want to act like it is, but it's not—"

"I'm getting fat. I'm upset about getting fat. That sounds pretty clearly like a weight thing to me." Bristling, rolling a kink out of his shoulders, Misha hugs himself as though this does anything to hide his gross, pudgy stomach. "What the Hell _else_ would it be if it's not a weight thing?"

"It's cute how you think you're really that simple and straightforward, babe—you know, when it's not being a total pain in the ass."

Before Misha can even protest that, Richard's grunting and jostling around on the mattress. He sits up next to Misha, pats at his lap… and shushes Misha when he tries to speak until Misha gets with Richard's idea of the program, flops down, and puts his head in Richard's lap, nuzzles up against Richard's soft, pudgy thigh, gets Richard's fingers combing through his hair and ruffling it up. It's comfortable. Soothing. Misha can't deny that, though he probably would if anybody asked.

"It's not even like I don't get the weight issue—I mean, it's not that I don't," Richard starts, only to sigh and go quiet for a moment, no doubt mulling over his choice of words. "I mean, I get the weight thing, sort of. And if it were all just about you wanting to lose weight? I wouldn't question it—some people wanna be thin, some people wanna be fat, and I'm fine with however you want to be."

(Misha very much doubts that, but Richard's tone is so earnest that he wants to believe the jerk.)

"If it were just a matter of you wanting to fix up your diet and trying to take care of yourself, even—hence the working out and eating better? By some doctor's idea of what, 'better,' means or whatever—"

"Or maybe my own idea of what, 'better,' means," Misha says, too stoked out on the hair-stroking to be as vitriolic as he wants.

"Which you probably got from a doctor, at some point. Or from shit written by a bunch of doctors." Richard tugs a bit at Misha's hair—gently, though; just enough to make Misha whine. "But it's not _just_ about weight with you, Misha—"

" _Yes, it is_ —"

"Boyfriend, do you think I'm fucking _stupid_?" Another tug of hair, followed by a smack on the top of Misha's head. "I've been here a while, Misha. I _know_ you. I've tried understanding before, but I just… And the reasons you give for wanting to lose weight are always like…" He sighs, half-groans, like the entire world's bearing down on his shoulders. "Y'know, I don't know what you hear when the rest of us talk to you, but just because we're telling you you're not fat doesn't mean we're not listening."

"You're all going _blind_ , clearly. Because otherwise, it'd be _obvious_ to you that I _am_ fat."

" _No, you're not_ —sure, okay, you've gained weight. There's a little bit of—I mean, you're a little heavier. Okay. It's not a big deal. We all know it. If anyone missed seeing it, we'd have to know by now because you never shut up about it anymore. Seriously, it's all you talk about—"

"I talk about other things—"

"Okay, fine. I'll acquiesce to that, Miss Swann—I'm disinclined to acquiesce to that, but I will. All you talk about anymore is your weight, and Edlund's class, and your diet, and getting into Edlund's seniors-only class next year, and how fucking fat you think you are—"

"I don't just think. I _know_. You guys can stop sugar-coating it already because I _know_ that I'm fucking fat—"

" _No!_ " Richard snaps. "You're not fat, Misha. You're fucking _not_ —and even if you were, what difference would it make?"

The desperation in Richard's voice stabs Misha right in the fucking heart—he rolls around so he can peer up and meet Richard's eyes. He immediately wishes that he hadn't. It's like getting salt poured into his stab wound, looking at Richard's frown and his furrowed brow, the way he's biting on his lower lip ever-so-slightly. Misha thinks he should say something. As though there's anything he can say to this. As though he can do anything but blink up at Richard and feel like the worst person in the world.

"I just mean…" Richard sighs. Picks up where he left off in playing with Misha's hair. Finds a slow, steady rhythm that manages to calm Misha's nerves, if only a little bit. "Jenny and I gained weight, too, right? So did Matt and Shepp—Jesus, you've been _feeding_ me, you _enabled_ Shepp and Matt, and you're not exactly shy about appreciating some pudge on Jensen. Are you really going to sit there and tell me that all of us went and turned into different people because we got fat?"

"If I'm not fat, then neither is Jensen," Misha says. It wouldn't be an issue if Jensen weren't insecure about his weight, or if his mom and Danneel would just lay off him about it, or if he could just get through a day without being some kind of hard on himself—but the arch of Richard's eyebrow suggests that he thinks it's not an issue at all. "I'm _just saying_ … Okay, fine. Whatever. Fine. You're absolutely right—is that what you want to hear?"

"Not really, no. I'd rather hear what you really think about this question." Richard shrugs as if to say that he thinks this is obvious and doesn't understand why Misha apparently disagrees.

Misha huffs. Nuzzles against Richard's thigh. Starts talking to the ceiling again, because it's just easier to handle than looking Richard in the eye: "Well, you _are_ right, okay? That's what I really think about this. It's not that easy, though—"

"Newsflash, Misha? But nothing with you ever is. It's all part of the appeal."

"Yeah, well, that's because you're a sick fuck. Which, fortunately, is part of your appeal and probably says a lot of really screwed up things about the kind of person I am."

In the back of his mind, Misha supposes that this isn't exactly the best contribution he could make to A Very Serious Conversation. Now might not be the time for deadpanning at Richard. Or for even trying to make jokes, even affectionate ones. But screw propriety—Richard started it, and getting a chuckle out of him makes Misha's admission come out so much easier:

"I just meant to say… Yeah, okay, _logically_? I know. I know how much I weigh has nothing to do with who I am. And it doesn't make any difference if I'm fat or skinny or in between or whatever. And I know I'm not a terrible person for needing to eat—it just means I'm alive or… science-y medical stuff, I don't know what it's all on about, that's not my area of interest. And I know my personality and all that shit will last longer than having a perfect ass or a thirty-inch waist or anything, so it's not worth all the energy to fret over them—y'know, whatever that's worth, since my personality's pretty obnoxious and hard to put up with for any extended periods of time—"

Richard tugs at Misha's hair again, gingerly scrapes his nails on Misha's scalp. "I love your obnoxious personality, though…"

"Because you are, as we established, a sick fuck. Did I _say_ I was done talking?" Misha finally looks back to Richard, who's trying to look like he's playing cool, but that knot worrying at his brow says he's about as cool as Hell. The expectation is scrawled all over his face. Misha sighs. Knocks a hand around by Richard's knee because extra physical contact is supposed to be reassuring. "Not that I'm—I'm not saying that I'm obsessed or anything like that, okay. I don't—Vicki thinks I am, but I don't. I disagree. Entirely. Because, like, obsession implies this is something I shouldn't be any kind of concerned about? And I don't think that's fair. I think I should be concerned about my weight, if I want to be, and I do—"

"And you're beating around the bush pretty expertly—"

"I have to work up to where I'm going, okay?" And they were doing so well here—the good old patterns of fuckery are coming right back and it's _gross_. "It's just… it's heavy stuff."

Fingers comb through his hair, but they don't really make him feel better this time. "You can talk to me about it, though—you know that, right? I wanna _help_ —"

"But I don't _want_ to talk about it," Misha sighs, closes his eyes. This is tiring. "I told you I don't want to talk about it."

"Considering everything you've said, I think you probably _need_ to talk about it—"

"It's my Mom, okay?" Misha doesn't mean to snap—it just comes out that way. Even he flinches a bit at how harsh his voice sounds. "Sorry, it's just… I mean…" Sighs. Nuzzles at Richard's leg again. Wonders where the fuck words get off, making themselves so difficult to use. "It's not all my Mom's fault. More of it's on me than her, really, but she's always had this… _thing_. About being skinny. And me being skinny. And gaining weight is bad, being fat is bad… Trying to get me and Vicki to think the same sort of thing…"

"Which clearly worked out so well for her. You've got a kink, and Vicki… well. Far be it from me to call her, 'academic interest' in sexuality kinky, but… It's pretty kinky."

"Plus, she compulsively runs her mouth off to authority figures." Misha only wishes these were his words. He's just parroting how Vicki's described herself countless times before. It's harder to cough up what's got to come next: "I've got a kink, sure, but it doesn't apply to me. 's like, I can't get like that—if I even start getting like that… I just can't get that way."

A long, quiet moment; the only sounds are their breaths and Richard's nails in Misha's hair. "Why not?" he mutters.

Misha shrugs. "I don't like it. Doesn't feel right. I don't want to… I guess it doesn't make any sense

Another long, quiet moment, but in this one, Richard moves. Wriggles down to the mattress and wraps Misha up in his arms. Lets Misha enjoy the spooning until he thinks that, you know, maybe? Just maybe, he won't have to hear any further nonsense about this tonight. Then, Richard has to say: "Misha, promise me something, okay?"

Misha agrees to this. Because he doesn't see why Richard would ask him to do anything unreasonable.

Richard kisses at the base of Misha's neck. "Look, I get that it's not really a problem right now—I'm trying not to be totally alarmist or anything, and I know it's possible for you to just be having a bad day, or a bad run of bad days, and I know you can take care of yourself and all… but, y'know, like. If you start feeling worse? If you start really feeling like—I don't know—like you've got to do something stupid over this? …Promise me you'll go to health services, okay?"

"Why?" Misha scoffs, entirely free of malice—except for the joke that is their student infirmary. "So they can give me a Z-pack and tell me I'm pregnant?"

He whines, next. And winces. And only realizes that Richard flicked him on the neck when Richard does it a second time. "Go to their psych counselors, dumb-ass," he huffs against Misha's neck. "They're more useful than the other—look, I know it's asking a lot," he adds when Misha starts to squirm, "and I know you maybe don't think you'll need to go… But they've been helping me through this semester. Like, with the stuff with my mom being sick. And you don't have to go _now_ , just. Please promise you'll go if you start feeling worse?"

Misha promises, and cuts off everything else, any attempts at talking further, with (half-legitimate) yawn and, "I'll see you in the morning, Sexy."

 

Coming back from spring break doesn't exactly help matters any, not as much as Misha hopes it will. Even if Richard comes back a good six pounds heavier, and even if this leads to making out, then fucking, Misha can't shake this feeling like things are supposed to be _better_. For one thing, Misha finds that the road trip was—as so many things in the world are turning out to be— _terrible_ for his weight problem. Two weeks later, not only has he eclipsed the dreaded 2-0-0, he's managed to add seven pounds more than that to his list of things to lose.

An eight-pound gain in total for spring break—just thinking about it makes Misha feel ill and hate himself. Misha tries to avoid looking at himself in the mirror for a week after seeing the bright red _207_ flash up at him on the scale when they get back from Massachusetts, that's how sick he makes himself. He wants to throw up soon after the revelation of how fat he's getting, and he tells himself that this doesn't mean anything. It's just a perfectly natural reaction to the vaguely Misha-shaped blob in the mirror.

Anybody else would get hit with a wave of nausea and revulsion from looking at him, too. Everyone's probably talking about him behind his back—comparing notes on how totally hideous he looks, how much weight they think he's gained and how disgusting it is. They're probably placing bets on when he'll hit three-hundred pounds and how big around his waist's gotten. How flabby his thighs are, and with specific measurements that even Misha doesn't have—a circumference and the read-out from a set of calipers, because clearly, "thunder thighs" just doesn't paint a clear enough picture.

Having all the stress of school back doesn't help him out any, because for all Misha _wants_ to cut back on his calories more effectively—for all he knows that he _should_ cut back and work out more often and focus on his grades instead of spending every moment fretting about his weight? For all he wants to get back on the right track, worrying so much only makes him hungrier, faster. The long stretches of not eating anything don't last long enough, and they inevitably end the same way: with Misha losing his resolve and stuffing his face until every pound on him turns into shame. Until his stomach feels like it's going to burst.

And even when he gives in and eats, it's not enough for the bastards who call themselves his support network. He gets that they're just trying to help—that Richard and Jensen and Vicki and Shepp just care about him and want him to be okay—but how can they act like a huge tray of food off the dining hall's buffet isn't enough for Misha, just because he didn't finish the lasagna or used low-fat dressing (or none at all) on his salad? If they want him to be okay so much, why can't they just help Misha with his diet instead of tossing more sweets at him when he's already vulnerable? They have to be disgusted with him—they're bound to be as disgusted as he is, if not more—so why try so hard to make him fatter?

(The only rationalization Misha ends up with is that they're trying to sabotage him on purpose. They care, in their own way, but they're more concerned with making him fatter and pliant and useless so he'll never be able to make them jealous, the way his enviable physique must have done, back when he was thin. They're the ones who are fucked up in the heads, not Misha. They think they're actually doing anything to help him by encouraging him to eat more.

You'd have to be totally fucked up to think that, with Misha being as fat as he is, with Misha only getting worse. Sure, they love him, but they don't know how to love him the right way. If they did, there wouldn't be any issue—they'd agree with him and support his diet and let him work on losing the weight.

Vaguely, Misha realizes the ostensible lack of logic in his thought processes. That Richard can't be disgusted by his body but still love touching him, can't hate how fat Misha's getting but still subject himself to fucking Misha, feeling all of his rippling, chunky flab get jiggling when they go at each other. And it's not like Richard could miss how big Misha's gotten… so Misha concludes that his friends are feeding him lies. Maybe they fucking hate him after all.

Anyway, these thoughts aren't a problem. It's all a confusing muddle in his head, so Misha just tries not to think about this shit too much.)

The side-effects of this cycle catch up with Misha pretty quickly. Another thirteen pounds soon show up to the party, worming their way onto Misha's body before he even notices them and quicker than he thinks should be allowed, putting him at two-twenty and leaving him with _undeniable_ love-handles and thighs like great, big, flabby tree-trunks. A stomach that's less tubby, less _pudgy_ , and more plainly _fat_. More unquestionably _disgusting_. He feels bile crawl up his throat every time Richard touches it, even just an accidental brush in passing, and Misha's even worse off when he hears his boyfriend coo and call his monster truck-sized spare tire _just a little tummy_ , or _a cute baby potbelly_ , or a _bit of Buddha belly_.

Naturally, it takes a glimpse of extremity for Richard to get it through his thick skull that Misha _doesn't like this_. Misha supposes he should just use their safe-word, but this never occurs to him when he can actually use it. Any time he feels Richard's hands go for his troublesome midsection, he tries to turn his brain off. Tries to tune out the whole world and his awareness of it and everything. Clenches his eyes shut and tries to pretend like he's somewhere else. Like he's skinny, and perfect, and Richard's feeling up a sexy, flat stomach instead of this hefty, repulsive _abomination type thing_.

One night, though, it gets to be too much. One night, Misha's studying on his bed, slumped up against the wall with his knees pulled close to him (but not all the way up to his chest), and he's content with this, content with reading here while Richard borrows his desk… but Richard's got other ideas. Richard nuzzles up to him like is pretty normal for them, and he snakes up to Misha's side, slips his hand under the straining hem of Misha's t-shirt and splays his fingers across Misha's paunch. Misha doesn't even whine, doesn't try to bat Richard's hand away—his nerves are fraying anyway and it's hard enough to ask _please… not right now?_

Which doesn't accomplish anything anyway, aside from making Richard snicker and grin and say that they could take advantage of the empty room and get in some _quality time_ —Jensen's down at the art building, working on an important project, and he won't be back for hours. Misha shakes his head and says he has to get this reading done for class tomorrow. He doesn't explain what's really going on. The thought occurs to him, but he doesn't see the sense in bothering. Because it wouldn't do anything either. Because Richard doesn't understand. He wants to trick Misha into thinking that his paunch is acceptable, even cute, when _it's fucking not_.

They bat a few more retorts at each other, with Richard's hand still nuzzling up against Misha's gut, rubbing it in gentle circles, and Misha tries to zone out like he has before.

He tries not to think—or to think about something else, at least—but his inner monologue just turns into a string of insults, even while Richard starts going on about how awesome Misha is, how much he loves him— _fat-ass_ , Misha hears. _Sickening, disgusting fat-ass pig. plumpy. big guy. roly-poly. love-handles. tubbers. fatty. gordo. porker. the Goodyear blimp. chubby hubby. oink oink oink, eat up, fatty. butterball. Free Misha, the amazing land-whale. what the Hell happened to you, Misha, you used to be so skinny… why'd you turn into such a fucking fat-ass?_

He grates his teeth along his lower lip, tries to tell his brain to shut up, but it just fights back by playing dirty. The next thing he hears, instead of whatever Richard's saying, comes to Misha in his mother's voice, perfectly emulating her accent, her speech patterns, even the way she times out her breaths— _Aren't you old enough to know better, Misha? Haven't you been through enough of this nonsense to know that slipping up in any way at all ruins everything you've ever worked for? Think of how trim you got your waist before—thirty inches, so lovely—don't you want to get that back? The only reason you haven't yet is weakness, you know. If you had any willpower, you'd be well on your way to getting that back by now, instead of just sitting on your big, fat butt, letting yourself get huge—_

Misha opens his mouth to say something. Feels the silence between him and Richard grinding at his teeth, and knows he should probably speak. It's already gotten awkwardly quiet. But Richard's hand is still bearing down on his stomach—still kneading into all of this _gross flab_ —Misha knows it's there because he can still feel it there, as clearly as he feels the hot, sharp sting as his eyes tear up… But when he looks down at his lap, Richard's hand isn't there.

He feels it on his elbow instead, fingers curling up there, all feather-light and delicate as they squeeze him. And something snaps in Misha when Richard whispers, "Hey… Meesh, what's wr—are you okay?"

He nods. Swallows thickly. Mutters that of course he is, he's just stressed about his classes, and—Misha's voice cracks, cutting him off. He buries his face in his hands and rubs at his eyes so hard it hurts. Gasps and hopes that'll be the end of this. But of course it's not. Misha still ends up coughing as the waterworks start up. Still ends up crying and whimpering in the smallest, most pathetic, broken voice, "…I _just_ want to get this weight off, is that _so much_ to fucking ask."

Richard sits up with a sigh. Nuzzles at Misha's temple and cards his fingers through Misha's hair. Doesn't say anything about Misha's weight—just says that he loves Misha, that he's here, that he doesn't understand what's going on in Misha's head right now, but he's not going anywhere. He says that he'll do anything he can to help Misha feel better. ( _Anything but stop meddling, and just letting me diet in peace, and stop touching me in the flabby parts, I guess_ , Misha thinks but doesn't say because the evening's bad enough already without him picking a goddamn fight.)

The only positive slant to this is that at least Richard learns from this. He's more careful about Misha's belly, about any time when he might touch it. He doesn't grope on purpose anymore, and he apologizes for any accidental contact, and Misha should be happy about this. Happy about not having to deal with any more potential situations like that one. But, after a while, the relief wears off and he just falls into thinking that of course Richard stopped touching his stomach—Misha not liking it had to be the most convenient cover for his revulsion ever.

 

Worst of all, though there's the oppressive feeling of _hugeness_ that follows Misha fucking everywhere, these days. That won't stop plaguing him once the weight really starts piling on. It always lurks behind him, even when he's not thinking about it. Leaves him sitting in his classes, wondering if he'll get through his days without breaking a chair or ripping his clothes or worse—whatever could be worse than those possibilities.

Even his chubby clothes from home start feeling snug—not too tight, but like an uncomfortable hug that just won't fucking end—and when he can't stand the thought of wearing his fat-ass jeans until they break (which seems more and more likely as the days drag on and he keeps failing to get thinner), Misha just moves into his yoga pants. They've never let him down, even when he's failed and let himself blow up like a fucking lard balloon.

He can't even take that much consolation in Richard getting bigger for him because Richard's gaining snags. He doesn't lose weight, and he doesn't quite hit a plateau, not really, but for a period, he doesn't gain as quickly as either of them want, no matter how many milkshakes he chugs down or how many times a week they stuff him, no mater how he constantly has food with him, how he's always eating it.

Misha tells him that it's okay—that everybody hits rough patches like this, even when they're gaining on purpose. He puts aside how much he doesn't want to tease Richard or risk getting him hard—how much he doesn't want to do _anything_ that might lead to them getting naked—to kiss the corner of his mouth. To kiss him more properly after that and say that Richard's weight doesn't matter to him. That he loves Richard, not how big he is. That Richard's gaining turns him on, sure, but that he won't push the issue or get upset if Richard can't gain anymore.

But Misha still stops weighing Richard regularly, after a while. He says it's because they're both busy, and they're both stressed out, and it's probably not doing them any favors to get hung up on the specific numbers when they should really care more about how Richard feels about his body.

The truth is, though, that it hurts too much to see Richard's numbers wobble around the same general range without seeming to increase, while Misha's own never seem to stop going up.


	4. What rushes into my heart and my skull.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot's still on holiday in Narnia, and things continue falling apart. In which, also, Misha is a dangerously unreliable narrator and doesn't realize it.

Two-twenty-six is the final straw.

For one thing, Misha's obese, at least from a technical standpoint. He has been for eleven pounds now, and while no one's trying to tell him he's skinny anymore, his friends, his sister, and his boyfriend still balk when he calls himself _fat_. ( _At least we're done with the goddamned lies_.) He still doesn't know how big around he is—aside from, "huge." And aside from, "bulbous." And aside from the heart-crushing knowledge that he's not going to get an exact number any time soon—Jensen, Richard, Shepp, and Vicki have done some kind of sorcery to keep Misha from getting his hands on a tape-measure and figuring that number out.

(That is, they've probably still got Matt on their side and babysitting the measuring tape. None of them even try to understand that an exact number would be _good_ for Misha to have, that he _needs_ that number—it wouldn't ruin his life, not like they think, but it might help save him. Give him a better perspective, help him assess the problem so he could fix it in the terms it needs, instead of just trying anything, trying everything, to no avail.)

For another thing, this isn't fucking _fair_ —Misha survived freshman year without picking up its dreaded fifteen pounds. He's worked _so hard_ , for _so long_ —it's not like he can just accept this, but nothing he's trying works—an eventual confrontation's coming closer. He's got classes looming over him in the meantime, the imminent threat of finals and turning in his term-long projects, and more importantly, Misha has someone he _needs_ to impress—Dr. Edlund hasn't had any negative comments about his work so far, but that could be the fault of how hard Misha's whipped himself to overachieve, how he refuses to compromise or accept any work that isn't his absolute best—

And all of his classes should be going well. Because academics haven't ever failed him. Even when he hasn't had the perfect body or the perfect anything else, he's been an exceptional student, he's gotten perfect grades… But Misha feels himself falling behind now. Edlund doesn't seem to notice anything. None of his other professors do, either. And Misha can't help wondering how they could miss it—how they can see him showing up for class in a haze, hear the way his answers and contributions to class discussions get unsatisfactory (all stumbling and half-baked and bullshit)…

All because of Misha's weight. All because of his increasing weight. All because he can't stop thinking about it.

Worse than the number itself is what happens after Misha hops out of the shower and sees those sickening digits spelling out his doom on the scale. He tries to put everything out of his mind and just get going, get dressed, get out the door and down to the student parking lot—it's a Friday night, Richard's birthday, and everyone (meaning Matt, Vicki, Shepp, Jensen, and Misha) is following him out for a night of unplanned, spontaneous debauchery. In his words. In theory, it's supposed to be all booze and rainbows and everybody loving everybody else.

But, on Misha's end? It's been a really stressful day—most of Misha's sweats are in the laundry basket at the foot of his bed. He had to wear a pair of jeans around to classes and, because he refused to do them up under his belly's little sag or undo them at lunch (no matter how much Vicki and Richard insisted that he needed to have more than _that_ ), Misha popped the button off them in the middle of the cafeteria. He finished the day in a spare pair of sweats Jensen had in his backpack, but once he's clean, Misha has to get some jeans back on.

He doesn't want to put jeans on, at this moment or ever again—he doesn't even trust his chubby jeans right now, even knowing that they've dealt with trying to contain more of Misha than two-hundred and twenty-six pounds—but he has to struggle into jeans, no matter how uncomfortable they are. Not only are Richard's choices in nightspots likely to have a dress code—one that distinctly does not include Misha's yoga pants.

He grabs the first pair of clean jeans he gets his hands on and doesn't bother pausing to check the tag or any other indication of their size. (Why would he? Misha doesn't even think he's left any of his good-Misha jeans—the ones with the thirty-inch-waistbands—out in the open… Besides, as long as he gets them on, it doesn't fucking matter what size they are or it they're a little too tight for him. Richard would probably like the latter situation.)

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Misha tries not to look anywhere that involves looking at himself. He slips into the jeans' legs, tries not to think about how tight the denim feels on his calves—and all his attempts at denial fall apart when he gets the jeans up to his (completely revolting) thighs (which not only touch now, but jiggle and grind against each other like tectonic plates every time Misha moves). He gets them to his thighs, where they snag instead of cooperating. Gently nudging them does nothing but make the fat on his thighs tremble.

Misha groans and wants to punch something. Like a wall. Or a pile of bricks. Or anything, really, as long as it breaks his hand and effectively distracts him from this fucking weight problem of his.

His stomach sours and he bites on his lip as he tries yanking the belt-loops, intent that _he will get these fucking jeans on_. That he will cram himself into them, no matter what it takes, and he'll go out for Richard's birthday and keep acting like everything is fine because it fucking is. Maybe Misha's been gaining weight lately—maybe he's put on almost seventy pounds since August; maybe he's been losing his hard-won slender physique, melting away into the blubbery mass that keeps greeting him in the mirror; maybe he's a disgusting butterball who won't be thin enough ever again—but everything's as fine as possible and he _is not_ too fat for his jeans.

Misha takes a deep breath, sucks in his stomach, and wriggles around on the mattress to no avail. He gives up (fails to ignore the way that sighing makes his fat, flabby stomach flop back out into his lap). He lies back, sucks in again, and keeps tugging—soon enough, tugging gives way to yanking, which gives way to groaning, and grunting, and _wrenching_ at his jeans. Trying to thrust back at them, like this might actually help him in this mission, and finally— _fucking finally_ —Misha makes progress.

Drags the denim up over the rest of his legs and almost tunes out how uncomfortably tight the fit is. Throws his weight back onto his shoulders, lifting his hips off the bed and, by some kind of miracle, forcing these uncooperative fucking pants up over his increasingly fleshy, jiggling ass. Misha doesn't ignore how his whole body—all of his revolting fat—seems to wobble. He just presses on despite it. Keeps jerking his jeans up against the impossible odds created by the thick layer of lard that's moved onto every part of his body.

Perseverance pays off, too. Misha gets what he wants. He gets his jeans on. Even gets the waistband up to where it belongs without pausing, trying to do it up underneath his gut.

But as he lets go of his jeans' flaps and lets them flop against his stomach, Misha can't enjoy this. All he can think about is how far away from each other they are. How even with him on his back, his _stupid, fat gut_ pushes them several inches apart—shivering a bit, too shocked to put real energy into this, Misha limply tries to nudge the button toward its hole, even though he's pretty sure it's hopeless. He sucks in and still finds the zipper stuck, still finds a roll of fat blocking its path. He stares at the ceiling like it might feel bad for him. Gets nothing but the anvil feeling in his chest and the hammering realization that he's right. It's hopeless. There's no way Misha's getting these jeans done up.

It's probably a fucking miracle that he got them on at all—not to mention all the problems with saying that he did. Not to mention the worst part of this whole misadventure. Not to mention the ear-splitting _RRRRIP_ that he hopes to God, hopes against all hope, that he just imagined… Misha sighs, thankful no one else is around to hear him whining with it, and reaches one hand down, brushes his fingers along the path of his zipper until he hits the seams.

Until he hits where the seams _should_ be, more like.

Instead of feeling what he expects, Misha feels frayed thread, separate pieces of fabric with a hole between them… He feels the cotton of his boxers where he should be feeling denim. _God fucking dammit_ —without thinking about it, Misha rocks back up to sitting and curls his legs up onto the bed with him. He's just resting his chin on his knees when— _RRRRIIIIIIIIP_ , another noise shocks through the room, longer and louder than the one before it, and, all of a sudden, his thighs don't feel so sausage-crammed into the denim. Their insides feel colder, too—like there really was just a rush of cool air, like it wasn't just Misha's imagination…

More frayed thread tickles up against his skin, telling him that, no. Really. He didn't dream this up. He knows he's just trying to fool himself, even before he slides his fingers between his legs and feels the gashes that go all the way down to his knees. Misha's hand trembles as he palms at the rent fabric. His lip quivers. Leads to his whole mouth following suit and his teeth chattering like he's in a goddamn Christmas cartoon.

It's only a minor miracle that Misha gets the jeans off. With how they're ripped, they peel off him easily, but he doesn't want to move. He doesn't want to look at himself. He wants to be drunk, or stoned. He wants for Richard to put him under, send him reeling into… wherever Misha went when Richard dommed him—but anything's pretty good with Misha, if it'll get him out of his head and make him stop _feeling_ , get him to feel something, anything, that isn't the brutal, lung-crunching constriction of his own fat body bearing down on him—and he can hear everything, his own breath, the stillness around him, his enormous thighs chafing together as he shuffles around, things that haven't even been said yet—things that maybe haven't been said or won't be said, because maybe he's imagining them, but they sound so _real_ —

— _What the Hell even happened to you? You had such a hot ass back in September—now who's laughing, Mister 'Thanks, I'm A Runner'? God, I hope you're not running anywhere anymore. Thunder thighs like that might cause an earthquake_ , says a voice that sounds like Richard's. (A malicious Richard—a Richard who's not even remotely gentle, and who cackles with a serrated edge to his voice, and even though, for those reasons, he doesn't really sound like Richard, it's all close enough to unsettle Misha's lungs, make them start flopping and hiccuping around in his chest).

— _So much for being the little brother, huh,_ says a voice that's Vicki's but it's not. _So much for being the little anything. Who's turning into a little Porky Pig over here? Is it you, or… no, wait, it's you._ —and the not-Shepp follows her: _It really was inevitable, you know. I mean, you manage to fuck up everything else, why not assume that you'd eventually fuck up your body and puff out like this? Nobody can say they're surprised, at least—well, except for you, but that sort of complacency probably got you into this position in the first place._ —then, in a voice that sounds too much like Mom for Misha's comfort, so much so that he can't tell if she's ever said anything like this or if it's all just him, _Oh, Baby, what are we going to do with you… Oh, no, no, of course there's nothing wrong with you—except for everything that's making you such a disappointment._

But the worst one is the voice that sounds like Jensen, and it only has to say five words: _You're such a fat-ass, Misha._

—and nothing else is going well, on top of this. There's classes, and life, and everything's all wrong—a rough, strangled sob claws its way up out of Misha's throat—and Misha hates that sound when it coughs up out of him—hates _himself_ for not being strong enough to keep it down. Even without anybody here to hear him blubbering. He can't control his life or his body or his emotions or himself—everything's broken, everything's _wrong_ , everything's stampeding through Misha's mind and another wavering, whimpery sob creaks out of his mouth. He wraps his arms around his legs, digs his nails into the fat accumulating in his calves— _I **used** to have muscle there, why the fuck would I slip up so badly, how the fuck can I not have noticed this_ —and his eyes start tingling like there are needles poking at them…

Misha groans and bites on his lower lip— _no, no, no, no, no, this isn't happening, I'm not gonna_ —thumping his forehead against his knees doesn't do anything to help him—it doesn't even get some of the tense energy out; it just winds him up, makes his frustrated keening louder and makes him cling harder to his own legs, bang into his knees with more ferocity—and finally, something in him breaks. The tears well up, spill over and trail down onto his cheeks— _no, no, God, no. Misha, this is fucking ridiculous. This is stupid. Stop it, stop it, stop it, just find something else to wear and go meet everybody. They're going to get pissed off if you're not there. Just how selfish are you, anyway? It's Richard's birthday and you're trying to spoil everything_ —

But the tears don't stop. They burn going down his face and more sobs come hacking up, until his chest hurts from the force of getting them out, his throat's on fire from how they claw their way out… Moving seems too difficult. Like a task that makes more sense for Hercules. Even sitting up gets impossible and Misha lets himself topple to his side—he only moves to grab a pillow and bury his face in it—and he doesn't notice anything but the strain carrying on with this puts on him, how his energy's flying out the window and making his whole body ache with exhaustion. He hears himself and nothing else, and at that, all he hears is the convulsions in his chest, the sobs creaking around—he doesn't notice that time's even passing until his pillow gets yanked away—

Misha whines, sighs, limply grabs at it. Stops. Blinks. Blinks again. Keeps crying, despite the ongoing attempts at telling himself to stop it, despite staring up into Jensen's pale face, the knot of his brow. The knot that starts tugging around in Misha's stomach makes looking Jensen in the eye harder, makes him wish he had enough energy to blush and try to look somewhere else—anywhere else as long as it's not at Jensen. Not at those wide, green eyes that look like they're right about to join Misha in crying. He only manages closing his eyes once Jensen crouches down by the mattress and brushes his fingers down Misha's cheek, and even that's more of a flinch than anything.

"Meesh… Misha, hey… hey, I…" Even stumbling all over his words, Jensen's voice is warm, reassuring—kinder than Misha fucking deserves. "Misha, what's wrong? What happened?"

Misha whines. Shakes his head and points down at the jeans-heap on the floor. Jensen prods at him for another moment— _come on, it's okay… Meesh, I wanna help, I can't do that if I don't know what happened… what happened, nobody's mad at you, we were all just worried… Misha, please?_ —before Misha points again and whimpers, " _so. fucking. fat._ "

He opens his eyes in time to see Jensen pulling back, examining the jeans. "Misha, these say _thirty_ , but they look like freaking _twenty-eights_ … Nobody could fucking squeeze into these—"

" _I could!_ " Misha wants his pillow back. He's being too loud, the screaming's like gravel dragging along the back of his throat, he needs to muffle it all and hide in his pillow. "I could before I got—" Another sob. In lieu of his pillow, Misha tries to hide his face in the mattress. "Jenny, I've _never_ felt so fucking fat—how could I even… I've been trying _so. hard_ , though, and just… I can't…"

Once he's started, he can't get his mouth to fucking stop—even getting his pillow back can't get him to stop talking when he should just shut the fuck up. All that happens is he curls up around it and buries his face in it again, murmurs, _wait, wha… Jenny, what're you doing_ , instead of screeching it—Jensen says he's texting, clearly, and puts his phone on the bedside table, and climbs into Misha's bed. Wraps his arms around Misha's shoulders. Clinging to Jensen instead helps Misha shut up a little bit—he just starts up all over again when Richard comes jogging through the door, red-faced and puffing and wide-eyed—he pauses in the doorway and they stare at each other—Jensen wriggles out of Misha's hold and for a moment, it's all cold along Misha's front. Until Richard draws him into a snuggle instead.

About the only difference is that Misha's word-vomiting turns into— _No, no, Babe, you don't… You didn't have to come back or anything. I'm fine. It's fine. Everything's fine… What'd Jensen tell you, it was lies, I swear… Don't let me fuck everything up for you. You should go back out and have fun for your birthday… I'll be fine. I'm fine. Everything's fine…_ (He hears Jensen telling Richard what he knows of the story, and Misha thinks he should correct Jensen's version of the events—chime in that Jensen's lying and it's really not that bad, not nearly as bad as it looks—except he gets a guilty burn all up the back of his neck just thinking about that.)

Sure, Richard _says_ , "It's okay, Misha—I swear… I've had a headache all day anyway, and debauchery seems sort of taxing, and… I'd rather spend my birthday with the guy I love, so…" but all Misha can think is that he's fucking up everything. That Richard's just lying to make him feel better.

And maybe he finally nods off with his head in Richard's lap, promising through the trail end of his hiccups that he won't do anything stupid over this, that he'll go see a counselor sometime soon, but Misha promises himself something, too. Silently, so nobody can take it away from him. He promises himself that, come Hell or high water, he's going to get a fucking handle on his weight. Even if he only succeeds in knocking himself out of, "fat" territory and back into the realm of, "a bit chubby," or (Richard's favorite euphemism) "pleasantly plump" (which he usually uses for himself, sure, because he wouldn't use it for Misha, because Richard should know better and know that Misha's not "pleasantly plump," he's _fucking fat_ )—

Even if he's never skinny again, the way he should be, Misha will get back in control of his weight problem. He will be able to comfortably wear jeans again. He won't massacre another pair of them like this.

 

"Babe…"

Misha's ignoring Richard—he's hunched over his desk, sitting there with his laptop and an oversized mug of tea, and he doesn't care what Richard has to say. Because Misha's ignoring him. Because Misha doesn't care about anything but typing until his fingers bleed. Because he has to finish this paper for Dr. Edlund's class—Edlund loved the last essay that Misha turned in to him, and so far, all Misha's got is seven paged, double-spaced, of some straight-up fucking nonsense. Like he puked all over the page and tried to pass it off as being intelligent.

" _Babe_ …" Richard says again, starts to go on with something else, but shuts the fuck up when Misha flings a dirty look at him— _you fucker, sitting on my bed and reading **Wuthering Heights** like you fucking own my ass. Can't you just accept that I'm busy so we can't get it on tonight? This is fucking **important** , Richard_—even flinches, looks like Misha smacked him in the face.

Misha turns back to his work. Chugs out of his tea and wants to throw the cup into the fucking wall for having the audacity not to be full of coffee. Oh, sure, he could have coffee, if he wanted. It's on his list of diet-friendly things, at least, which helps so much that he doesn't have words for it… Misha's not sure he could've made it through getting back on a good behavior diet and exercise plan if he couldn't start every morning with the biggest blacker-than-the-pits-of-Morgoth coffee that the campus coffee shop will give him—but Richard and Jensen cut him off for tonight. Apparently, it's somewhat disconcerting that Misha's had enough caffeine to start twitching.

Never mind that he only twitched a _little_ bit, in one eye, and it only happened because of one paragraph that keeps tripping him up.

Never mind that Misha's been feeling fuzzy all day—like there's a fog clouding in around his brain—and thinking's been hard enough to begin with, to say nothing of how Misha needs to make _sense_ in what he's writing and he's currently not doing that.

Never mind that nothing matters more than making sure that this assignment's done on time—it's due in class on Friday, so Misha only has two days left to make it perfect, so he's even sacrificed (most of) his work-out time to sit here on his big, fat ass and beat his head against this _stupid fucking paper_ , which he's probably going to fail on.

"Misha!" Richard snaps—Misha whips his head around, following the noise—finds himself blinking up at Richard without having to move that far—he means to keep the wondering to himself, but instead, hears himself asking where Richard came from. Richard frowns, folds his arms over his chest. He's doing The Face. The Face that says he's so Thoroughly Unimpressed with Misha that it's literally painful. "Meesh, seriously. Take a break or a nap or something—or, just. So help me, if you don't cut yourself some slack, I'm dragging your ass over to health services first thing in the morning."

Misha shakes his head—maybe a little too hard, or too fast, or… something. He can't tell. All he knows is that he winces. Groans. Feels everything lurch like his brain's jerking around inside his skull, instead of staying put. "I'm fine, though," he insists and hates the Novocaine-heavy feeling of his mouth. The half-yawn that creeps into his voice. "It's important, okay? I know I'm going sort of crazy here, but I'll be fine after Friday—"

"Who said anything about crazy? I'm talking about how you look two seconds away from passing out on the keyboard, idiot."

Misha shakes his head again. Everything spins around him again. But he still says, "Well, I feel fine, so—"

"How the Hell can you feel fine right now? You barely slept last night, you're chugging coffee—I know you skipped lunch and haven't had dinner yet—"

"Yeah, well, I had a big breakfast before I went to Zerner's class—" Misha rolls his eyes and turns back to his laptop—he doesn't have the time for this crap, not when his head feels heavy on his neck and the fog's still crowding in on his brain and there's a cloudy, white haze edging in and blurring his vision—

" _Did you_?" Richard huffs. "I'm not trying to be a douche here, Misha—I'm really not, it's just… You said that yesterday, too, and then I find out from Shepp that, yeah, okay. You met him for breakfast, and only had half of a goddamn banana… I don't want to question you, Misha, but… I'm _worried_ , okay? So did you _really_ have a big breakfast today? It doesn't even need to be a _big_ breakfast, I just want to know if you had _any_ breakfast…"

_Shit. Shit, shit, fuck—come on, don't falter, don't let the shit hit the fan. It'll be fine if we can just tell a fucking lie—he doesn't have to know that the last time we ate was yesterday—it's an endurance test and we're fucking winning it—we don't even have to look him in the eye to tell it, just keep lying…_ "Of course I did," Misha sighs. (The sound is heavier than he expected.) "I knew I'd be busy and working all day, so I got up early…"

( _And went for a run around campus and showered off at the gym so you wouldn't be able to tell._ )

Misha shakes his head. Stifles his internal monologue, and carries on: "And I made sure I got everything I'd need for today, even snacks for later, I ate them at the library, so…"

But Misha doesn't finish that thought. He blinks at his computer screen. Tries to refocus his vision but just ends up with it blurring more. Lets slip a whimper and a sigh as everything whites out.

Misha comes to a moment later, hardly even that. He hasn't fallen over or passed out; he's still staring at his computer screen, blinking back at the cursor hanging at the end of his most recent sentence—but when he reaches for his mug, Richard grabs his wrist instead. _Fucking… fuck that **no**_ , he says, dragging Misha up out of his seat, over to the bed. _You're taking a goddamn break. Jensen's bringing you a sandwich, then you're going to eat it, and then if you feel better, you can get back to work. If not, though, we're going to bed. No questions asked._

Misha knows he ought to struggle, but he drops to the mattress like a fucking rock and can't even really snuggle Richard once they're both on the bed. He can't even protest the sandwich—and he knows that he should; the turkey, Swiss cheese, lettuce, and tomato are the only parts of the thing that are on Misha's list of diet-friendly foods. There's bacon on it, too (nuzzled up between the slices of turkey, hidden until Misha bites down and hears the crunch, tastes the bacon). And there's mayonnaise. And Jensen apologizes, says the dining hall didn't have anything else left, but that doesn't make the bread any healthier. Even as he sighs and hates this and calls it an early night because he doesn't feel up to moving again, Misha knows he's getting off easy. At least the shit didn't hit the fucking fan.

 

Not that Misha actually expects for shit to hit the fan at all, much less the way that it finally does.

He just takes it for granted that he and Richard don't really need to talk about things. That he doesn't need to go get help or anything like that—he's been in questionable places before, emotionally, and gotten out of them just fine. Besides, he's not avoiding food as much as everybody seems to think. How can he, when he's still fattening up his boyfriend? He's limiting what he eats, reducing portion sizes, exercising as much as he can find the time for and as much as his leg allows—everything that you're _supposed_ to do.

Sometimes he skips meals, sure. And sometimes, he lies about how much or how little he eats, or says he ate earlier. One Friday, once he's worked back up to running, Misha has to deal with his nerves scratching against his skin until he skips out of his afternoon classes and just _runs_. He starts with laps around campus, then stops caring about where he goes as long as he's still moving. By the time his legs can't move anymore and his head's spinning too much to stand up, much less think, Misha's gone all the way to the strip mall with the arcade—a good two-and-a-half miles away from campus, at least—he's drenched in sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, and he has to call Vicki to come pick him up.

All he can think during the silent drive back to campus is that he used to be able to do the whole five-mile loop and then some without giving up, and that he needs to get that ability back, no matter what it takes.

The _Talks_ with Shepp start shortly thereafter. Richard's on Misha's ass, telling him to please go see one of the psych counselors at student health services, or to try going to one of their support groups, but Misha never makes good on all the half-assed promises to look into it. He makes one appointment, cancels about an hour before it's supposed to happen because of an emergency meeting with Edlund about where Misha wants to take his course trajectory next year. And since this doesn't get him into trouble, he never bothers with trying again.

It's easier to just talk to Shepp over lunch, smiling and nodding and not really listening to his advice or responses because he's giving it based on some bullshit that only hints at what's going on in Misha's head, anyway. And even the hints aren't all that honest because facts are facts: Shepp probably doesn't want to know about how Misha can't even look at one of his lunch salads without trying to mentally calculate how many calories are in the whole thing or how best to push it around his plate to make it look like he's actually eaten a substantial amount.

Sometimes, Vicki's there, too, and she's better at picking Misha apart, figuring out when he's bullshitting them—but then, he mostly just sucks it up. Takes a couple bites of a cookie or a Snickers bar. Puts on the best smile he can manage and shrugs and says that no, really, he's fine. Why's everybody making such a big deal out of it.

And then there's Jensen, who doesn't know when to let things go. Not that Vicki, Shepp, or Richard know how to do that, either—but Jensen's the one who needs to learn the lesson most of all. After the Incident with Misha's jeans, and after how Jensen had to sit there and watch Misha be fed, he asks how Misha's feeling more often than anybody. He tries to keep Misha thinking about the off-campus apartment they're looking at for next year, because he thinks it'll help if he gets Misha to turn his mind to happy things. He leaves his boxes of snack cakes out and always looks so disheartened when Misha doesn't partake.

Despite his own insecurity about his body, Jensen seems to start eating more, like he's _trying_ to gain weight, all because one day, Misha screws up and complains that he'll be bigger than Jensen, soon. And, still, Misha can't bring himself to just admit to Jensen that he's not okay, that he's too fat to be okay.

It sucks, every single fucking minute of it—and not just because Misha spends too much time feeling hungry; lying to his friends, lying to Richard and Vicki, it all makes Misha feel like the worst person in the world. They only pry and mother-hen at him because they're concerned, he _knows_ that, and they'd be _so pissed_ if they knew how much work he puts into lying to them. The guilt claws at Misha's nerves and sits in the pit of his stomach like a lead brick—but the results are worth that. Finally, the weight he's gained comes off.

It does so more slowly than Misha likes, and probably too slow to make that much difference in how Mom's going to react when they see each other next, sure, but that's still better than nothing. It's still worth all the times that Misha's head spins, all the times his knees wobble and all the times he fakes his way through sex—letting Richard do just about anything he wants without much reaction—because Misha's too tired to really care, all the times he has to make up some story and cover his ass because he slipped up his lies enough to attract notice.

But it's all worth it. Even the way things eventually hit the fan. He'll repeat it until it's an undisputed truth. _Everything Misha has to do is worth the effort_ —and if it doesn't seem like it now, then it will when he's thin again.

 

"Dad, we've been fucking over this already—I mean, Jesus H., it's not like any of your bullshit's worked at making me any less gay before!"

It's almost six weeks into his diet, and before he hears Misha's intent on just having a normal night, ignoring whatever's happening on the other side of the bathroom door. He stumbles out of the shower and onto the scale, sees the bright red numbers flash _206_ up at him, and sighs. It's not bad—he hasn't gained weight again, at least—but the two pounds he's lost this week were part of the three he put back on last week, and even if he'd lost them without slipping back up to 208, he'd still be behind schedule… A total twenty-pound loss doesn't make much difference when he should've been down at _least_ twenty-five, if not thirty.

(Vicki says these plans are unrealistic and potentially unhealthy; Misha says that Vicki's just trying to keep him fat because she likes being the skinny twin.)

And still, the noise on the other side of the door continues: "Why the fuck can't you just get over it? You've got a gay son. A son. Who is _gay_ —have you noticed that no one's tried to smite you for that yet?"

Misha blushes scarlet as soon as he realizes what he's hearing. He doesn't mean to eavesdrop on Richard—especially not during a phone call with his father—but his boyfriend has no concept of an inside voice. Sounds like someone shouting, albeit indistinctly, for the most part—and that's just Richard's normal talking voice. More importantly, whatever Richard's going on about sounds serious… so, Misha cracks the door back to his and Jensen's place, flops onto the toilet to finish getting everything together…

"I'm just saying, Dickie—with your mother being in the state she's in, you could try a little harder. At least pretend to be normal until her time comes, instead of running around with those boys you do."

"Mom's not—okay so, for one thing? I only run around like you're implying with _one_ guy. Misha. My _boyfriend_. Who I'm committed to. I think you met him—"

"The neurotic twinkie one, I do recall—"

" _He wanted to impress you, Dad_! Of course he was on edge!"

"Dickie, if you wound that boy's nerves any tighter, they'd snap like guitar strings."

And go figure, Richard went and put the stupid talk on speakerphone. Misha never understood the impulse to actually use that setting—but since Richard's decided to do so, Misha slumps against the wall, listens in instead of putting his pajamas and his brace back on. Eavesdrops while the Richard Speights go back and forth, digging at each other. Because Richard's not doing enough for his ailing mother and only using being up at school as an excuse for being a bad son. Because Richard's been doing everything he can and it's not like he and Dad help Mom any by fighting every time they get within earshot of each other. Because Richard's got more excuses than a stray dog's got fleas. Because he wouldn't need to make excuses if Dad would just treat him like a fucking human being.

Misha tries not to focus on the words. He tries not to listen when Richard's father says that Richard would have a right to complain about that if he didn't insist on being gay—and Misha tries not to flinch when he hears the words crack out, _it's not like you don't have a choice not to be a faggot, Dickie_. Mr. Speight the Elder's voice sounds thick and hoarse, desert dry and permanently two steps away from a fit of smokers' cough—when he starts hacking up a lung in the middle of chewing Richard out, Misha can't help feeling his chest glow with pride. Silly thing to get self-content with, sure. But still, he was _right_ about one thing (probably).

And that's horribly ineffective at accomplishing anything, much less soothing Misha's nerves the way he needs them soothed. He tries to turn his attention to something else, thinks he should just put on his clothes and then he'll stop listening, stop being able to listen. But despite the fact that he should just tune the private conversation out, find any way to turn it into white noise and nothing he can recognize , even running into the neighbors' room—"God dammit, Dad, what in the fuck do I have to do to prove to you that this isn't a _choice_ , and even if it were? Why does it make me _wrong_?"—Misha just leans forward and closer to the door.

There's just a sigh, next, and a thud as (Misha presumes) Richard throws his phone at the wall. Misha slumps harder on the wall, completely at a loss for what to even think about that conversation, much less how to say anything about it—what the Hell are you even supposed to say in this kind of situation? It's not like they make Hallmark cards, or basic guides to social niceties, for accidentally eavesdropping on a Serious Conversation between your boyfriend and his homophobic dad. _Sorry, I Found Out Your Dad's A Bigot, Can We Talk About It, Because We Probably Should_ —not like that would even work. It could be helpful, though. Could make trying to figure this shit out easier. At least until—

"It's cool, Meesh," Richard calls through the door, knocking on it like gunshots. "I know you're listening, stop trying to hide it or whatever."

Misha shouldn't make a big deal out of this, or so he tells himself as he claws his way up to standing. He should just give Richard a hug, and sit him down on the bed for some cuddles and making out, and let this all blow over without another word. Because Richard's like him, in this sort of regard. Richard's not someone who likes airing his problems for anybody, not even Misha—but as he hobbles back into the room, Misha feels his lips start quivering, his palms itch with the need to say _something_ , and before he can think to stop himself—

"So, you wanna tell me what the fuck that was?" falls out of his mouth and crashes into what could've been a deadly awkward silence. Richard glances up at him, eyebrow arched as if to demand confirmation that Misha just said that, and because it's the only way he can think of to back himself up, fake like he stands behind his nonexistent convictions—"No, seriously, Richard. You want. To tell me. What the fuck. That was."

All Richard says is, "Nah… No, Meesh, I really don't think I do. I think I'd rather keep it to myself, really."

Misha cocks an eyebrow right back at him, and cocks a hip out with it—mostly because of how it rests his weight more on his good leg, though looking like he's got an attitude problem certainly doesn't hurt. "You're not _seriously_ going to go and spend a summer with those fucking people," Misha says through a huff, folds one arm over his chest (to play up the attitude problem) and forces his free hand through the sopping mess of his hair (to make it stop dripping on his face. "You can't do it."

"Those _fucking people_ are my _family_ —and yeah. I'm gonna spend a summer with them. Back at my parents' house. Down south. Where it's a huge problem that I'm gay as a maypole and I'll probably get dragged off for a prayer circle for my trouble. Don't see why I can't—"

"Don't see why you can't?" Fine, then. If Richard's going to play coy, Misha's just got to make himself a defuser of bombs. Find the right wires of Richard's brain and clip them. Or just yank them all out until Richard cooperates and/or something explodes. "Your fucking _father_ just all but called you an abomination and you don't see why you can't spend the summer there. Right. Sure. That makes _perfect_ sense, in some… fucked up, Mirror Universe, black is white and up is down kind of way."

"Well, considering it's not your business to make my decisions _for_ me, I think we're pretty much done with this conversation."

"Well, I started this, so we're not done until I say we're done—"

"Yeah, because _that's_ not some rationale straight out of the five-year-old's playbook for arguing—"

"I'm not fucking _arguing_ with you, Richard—"

"Oh, really? Because I kinda missed that in between the eavesdropping and then the storming out here like you've got some kind of right to be pissed off about _my_ decisions—"

"I'm your _boyfriend_ , you dick. I think that gives me all the right I need to be pissed off when you're making shitty choices—"

"Like I'm the only one here who makes shitty choices." Without even missing a beat, Richard's sullen, glowering look snaps into a poisonous chirp, and he drawls like arsenic mixed up with raw cane sugar, "So, what d'you want to grab for dinner tonight, Babe? I'm _starving_."

Misha tries not to flinch. Tries not to shudder. Tries not to let the color seep out of his face, as though he has any control over this—just the mere mention of food, of having to share a meal with Richard, who might watch him eat and spot when Misha's just shoving food around… It all sets him reeling. Makes him lightheaded (though maybe that's how much he's eaten… or not… every moment of keeping track of his food intake swirls around like going down a drain under Richard's white hot, magnifying glass glare, the one that says _don't lie to me or I'll fucking end you_ ).

He tightens his hold on himself and tries to fight off what could turn into a white-out, attempts to hide his arms all up in his chest, digs his fingers and his nails into his arms until they might break skin or else leave bruises. Misha tries to shake himself around, when he catches his mind drifting toward the sorts of thoughts Richard and Jensen would berate him for—catches himself thinking that his arms are getting fleshy, pudgy like the rest of him's been getting, that this is the worst possible thing he can have happen because it means the flab's running out of room around his waist, and it'll all be harder to lose, much less before it's summer and Mom gets to see him.

But trying to banish those thoughts? Doesn't work.

Not really, anyway. Misha's still thinking that he didn't check his weight this morning, that he's probably put on twenty pounds because Shepp and Jensen invited themselves to lunch with him and kept trying to modify his portions or giving him Skeptical Glances because they wouldn't just come out and say, _you're not eating enough, bitch_. And Richard's still glaring at him—up until Misha shuffles his feet, briefly shifts his weight off his good leg and stares intently at the floor. Then, Richard finally _groans_ and next thing Misha knows, a pillow bounces off his head and he's snapping _the fuck was that for_ —

"You know what it's for, you fucking—I can't even—just—" Richard heaves another sigh. Pelts another pillow and misses Misha by a wide margin. "You _**unbelievable**. fucking. dick_ —"

"What the fuck did _I_ do? You're the one throwing shit!" And even as he asks it, Misha knows that this is a stupid question. He has a whole laundry list of things he hasn't done, promises he hasn't kept, lies he's told to cover up both situations—and he should've tried harder, just now, to keep up his facade, but he fucked up instead. And go fucking figure, too. Because it's just like him to be a coward.

Pouncing off the bed, rounding on Misha like a trapped animal and getting all close enough that they should be kissing, Richard lowers his voice until it simmers with the threat of blowing up again: "You haven't been to Health Services or their support groups, have you? _Have you_?"

He pauses and as he locks them on Misha, his hazel eyes burn like the ends of cigarettes—Misha trembles as he tries to keep eye contact. His heart skips a beat, then pounds so quickly, so loudly, that Richard _has_ to hear it. And he doesn't _see_ Richard's reaction, but Misha hears the whine-soaked huff that comes when he has to look down at the floor instead. What little of it he can see between Richard's sizable belly and his own. Which he _knows_ looks smaller, by comparison, but he can't help thinking that it's not by much, that he'll be bigger than Richard is, if he doesn't fucking watch himself.

Without Misha so much as shaking his head, Richard gets his answer and snaps, "I _knew_ it. I mean, I didn't want to think I knew it, or believe what I saw, but I _saw you_ , Meesh, and I knew, and just… And I _fucking defended you_ , you know that? Jensen and Vicki thought you were fucking around and acting like… like, Hell if I know, like you weren't even trying to get better, and you know what I told them?"

Whispering down at his feet, Misha supposes that he has no idea what Richard told them. And for that, he gets shoved in the shoulder, just hard enough to remind him that Richard's here. "I told them they were _crazy_ , Misha! Delusional! Fucking seeing things, because _you wouldn't lie to us like that_. Not with how fucking serious this is—"

"It's _not_ fucking serious! Everybody always says that, but you're all _wrong_ —it's _not. fucking. serious_!"

Misha doesn't notice the volume of his voice until it's out there, until his throat's scratching like an angry cat and his hands are coiled up in fists and he doesn't know how or why they got like that. He feels like everything inside him's boiling, and for all he wants Richard to glare at him again, give him any reason to get angrier, the only thing Misha gets is stared at. Like he just punched Richard in the face, then drowned a three-legged orphan kitten on top of it.

Misha's nails dig into his palms, scrape too deeply at the skin, and he barely manages to turn off the yelling as he says, "I don't have to go to health services. I've been talking to Shepp."

Richard starts to say something, but pauses, leaves his mouth hanging open while his nose and brow wrinkle up. He starts again, cuts himself off again—makes coughing noises and gasps, shaking his head and glaring—and finally, he manages to shout: "Mark Fucking Sheppard is _not. a goddamn. THERAPIST!_ "

Misha groans. "You wanted me to talk to someone, so I am—someone I _trust_ , someone who _doesn't_ have the power to kick me out of school—"

"They'd never fucking do that—"

"They'd make me take a leave of absence, maybe—"

"Well, maybe you _need_ a fucking leave of absence—maybe you need to go and get _fucking treatment_ —"

"And maybe _you_ need to butt the Hell out of something that isn't any of your business—I mean, if I'm not allowed to give a shit about _you_ doing stupid, self-destructive shit—"

"So you _admit_ it's stupid and self-destructive, but you're still insistent on—"

Richard's not done yet and he keeps right on chewing Misha out, but Misha doesn't hear a word. Not really. He's done with this conversation. He shoves past Richard, heading for the bed like he wanted to originally, and finds it easier than he expected. Richard doesn't even fight him. Just sort of stumbles off to one side. That doesn't help Misha's nerves any— _Jesus God, he really believes that this is serious_ —nor does the bone-grinding silence that follows, lasts as Misha picks his reading for Edlund's class up off the sheets, flops against the wall and tries to pick up reading where he left off. Lasts until Richard sighs and asks if that's really how seriously Misha's taking this problem, that he can just put it out of his mind like nothing's going on.

"That's the plan, yeah." Misha doesn't even look up from the packet of photocopied articles. He's not really reading. The words all blur together and his head hurts (from the fighting and the raised voices, naturally—not from anything else, least of all how he hasn't eaten since last night).

Misha doesn't get a chance to make sense of anything, either—the articles fly out of his hands, end up on the floor—he lets his eyes follow them to where they land in a heap, peering off to the side and around Richard, and only looks up when Richard's hand curls up in Misha's t-shirt. He mutters something, unintelligible even to him—he means to ask if Richard's done now and what the Hell does he think he's doing because Misha's got to finish that reading, but it all comes out in a string of random syllables. Richard growls, but it comes out like a mewl. And he climbs onto the mattress, straddles Misha's hips and holds their faces so close that Misha tastes the cold, nervous quivering on Richard's breath.

"You _fucking promised me_ ," Richard says, voice cracking and barely above a whisper. "You _dick_ … you _fucking promised_ …"

"I said I'd go see those people if I felt worse." Misha has no idea where this matter-of-fact tone is coming from, how he can even be so flat, so mechanical, while Richard's clenched his eyes shut and pursed his lips into a thin, pale line. "I said I'd go if I felt like I needed to do something stupid. But I haven't felt like that. I haven't done anything stupid. It's all just been a diet—there's nothing wrong with getting on a diet—"

"A diet is changing your portion sizes to something reasonable and cutting back on eating certain things." Richard's hand curls up tighter in Misha's shirt and he knocks his knuckles into Misha's collarbone—not intentionally, not trying to hurt, but digging in harder than Misha expects. "It's not… skipping meals or restricting how much you can eat the way that you do—and it's not doing that thing where you pick a bit and shove food around to make it look like you're eating, either," he adds with a heavy sigh. "Just for the record."

Maybe he should look away from Richard, try to affect some kind of _I'm so lost and confused, please explain it to me_ mask—but Misha just furrows his brow and glares. "What part of, 'changing your portion sizes' doesn't mean, 'restricting how much you can eat'? How are those not the same thing?"

"How are those—they're not the same thing because of how _fucking far_ you go!" There's a definite snarl to Richard's voice, but it's not angry—it's more like he's trying to fake that but it's all too raw for him to manage. Misha just shakes his head and whispers that he has no idea what Richard's trying to say—which gets Richard to cough up some barking, yowling sort of noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob. "I'm trying to say that you're _sick_ , Misha—and not sick in like, a kinky sex way. You're sick in a way where _I'm worried about you_ , and your sister's _worried about you_ , and Shepp and Jensen are _worried about you_ —"

"Take a chill pill or something," Misha mutters, shaking his head and taking _some_ comfort in the way their foreheads are pretty close, close enough that this feels like a nuzzle. "You guys are just… I swear to God, it's not as big a deal as you think it is… I'm just on a diet, like I've said, and you don't have to worry about me… None of you guys do. I'm _fine_." _If you fucking liars were really worried, you'd stop sabotaging all my work and fucking help me…_

"Can't you see that you're _fucking not_?" He's begging now. _Pleading_. His voice whimpers from the strain of it—and that tone shocks through Misha like he just poked a power outlet—he blinks up at Richard, and the words make sense—Richard and Jensen and Vicki and Shepp have all but said this several times in the past few weeks—but the tone… and that look in Richard's eyes… and, "If you're so _fucking fine_ —if you're seriously just on a diet—then why do you keep getting dizzy. And why do me and Jensen have to wait 'til all hours for you to get back from _just going for a run_. And why do you get _so fucked up_ at seeing a _fucking certain number_ —"

"I don't get fucked up over any numbers," Misha lies. It's an outright lie—Misha's first one tonight, from where he's sitting—and it tastes like Fruity Pebbles and battery acid on his tongue. But Richard doesn't have to know how Misha feels after most of his morning weigh-ins. Nobody has to know about that because it's not weird or wrong or anything sick—anybody would get upset about their diet going over like a lead balloon when they've put in so much work. "And… I don't know, maybe I'm getting dizzy so often because of my anxiety—maybe my shrink and I need to talk about meds or something, but it doesn't help me right now because it's not the _work_ that I need to be doing, and—"

"You know what I think?" Richard says with a sigh—not a heated one, or even a particularly energetic one. It's just _tired_. Like the way that Richard's eyes get looking—they don't dull or anything, don't look any less upset… But the way he stares at Misha begs by doing nothing at all. Pleads without quivering or doing anything else. Richard's eyes just sit there, looking like they've been carrying the world and can't do it anymore. "I think you have an eating disorder, Misha—"

"I don't have an eating disorder." Misha shakes his head. Closes his eyes and frowns. "I don't… Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound right now? I have an anxiety disorder, sure—it's diagnosed and being treated and all that crap—and sure. Okay. I'll admit it: sometimes, yeah, I get anxious about my weight but only because I get anxious about everything, that's kind of what Generalized Anxiety Disorder means, y'know—"

"And because you _have an eating disorder_." Richard's so exhausted, so matter-of-fact, in saying this—Misha almost believes him. "I've been reading shit about them, okay? And I've been asking my health services counselor." (Misha feels his eyes bug out, feels the color drain from his face, but thankfully, Richard notices.) "And… oh, God, no—no, babe, no, I promise. I swear to God, I haven't told her anything specific about you—" (Misha breathes a sigh of relief, doesn't even try to keep it in.)

"I've just been asking her for information, and… Misha, please. At least read the stuff I've got? _Please_? I know it sucks. I know it's _hard_. But it makes a lot of sense—you're not anorexic or bulimic, but there's this other one. They call it ED-NOS? And everything I've read about it… It just makes _so. much. sense_ —When you're stressed, you either binge or don't eat anything. Your idea of a full, balanced diet? Even when you're happy with your weight, it's like… It's like you don't want to eat. You act like food will fucking kill you."

Richard sighs again, dropping his forehead onto Misha's and tugging at his shirt so hard that the seams in Misha's collar start to snap. "You freak out about the _thought_ of gaining weight," Richard goes on, barely speaking above a whisper, even as he gets worked up, "and that's not saying anything about how you've been this semester… All the thought processes are there, the ones about weight and food and control and… I mean, you hide it well enough—you eat well enough when you're not trying to lose weight. And you're glib, and you're charming, and you've got almost everyone convinced that you don't have any problems…"

He doesn't mean to, but in the middle of this tirade, Misha kisses Richard—their mouths are too close together and Richard won't stop talking, telling Misha that he needs to give himself time to get better, that he needs to realize he has a problem and want to get better from it too, that he needs help (and more than Richard and Vicki and their friends can give him), that it's not a crime to need the semester off for health reasons—and those words sting and burn in Misha's ears. Kindle in his stomach until he feels like he might catch flame. It's easier not to pay attention. It's easier not to fucking talk. It's easier to knock Richard over to the mattress, to keep kissing him until their lips are bruised and both of them gasp for breath, to grind against his hips and go through all the motions until they're sweaty and naked and fucking instead.

It's easier not to admit that he knows what Richard's talking about—that, for a good four years now, Misha's known the phrase _eating disorder not otherwise specified_. Known exactly what it means. Known the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for it so well that, at one point, he had it memorized. Misha's known the term since high school, not to mention that it hits too close to home for him to ignore or just dismiss—but it's easier not to deal with that, and it's easier not to admit to anything.


	5. For me, it isn't over.

Even the shit hitting the fan can't make Misha stop, though. He doesn't see why he should, or why he has to do it—he's losing weight, but he's still fat, and everything else is still a fucking mess that he can't fix, so why _should_ he give up the one thing that he has a choice in?

All he does—all he even tries to do—is get better at hiding the extent of things, the extent of how bad they really are. He does some reading of his own. He looks into vitamin supplements, buys them from the Better Health down in town one Saturday morning while he's on his run. He thinks about puking after meals, so he could eat enough to keep everybody happy, but he doesn't put it past his friends to follow him to the bathroom and eavesdrop—so he switches to smaller plates in the dining hall, makes a bigger mess out of them when he's really only downed a few bites of this or that.

For what it's worth, his efforts start to work. Plus, finals keep everyone busy and distracted, which works fine enough for Misha—Shepp's got graduation stuff to worry about, on top of that, and an advertising internship to get ready for… Apparently, they really like people who have psych degrees. For his own part, Misha really likes having folks too preoccupied to care what he gets up to with his own goddamn body.

In the last week of the semester, at a weigh-in to celebrate finals being over, Richard finally hits the goal weight, the one he and Misha have worked at since October. Two hundred and forty pounds, just like he wanted, and then-some—he has to suck in his gut to even see a hint of the red digital numbers after Misha reads them out. He doesn't believe it when Misha rattles off _two-fifty-six-and-a-half_. He doesn't believe that his belly's actually measuring a full fifty-five inches around, even with the tape still wrapped around the fullest, thickest part of his soft, warm middle.

But neither of them are smiling.

For his own part, Misha _should_ smile. They've put so much work into this, the both of them, and on top of that, he's lost seven more pounds in the three weeks since his and Richard's blow-up—even if it's still not enough, even if it's almost definitely because he's been too nervous to eat that much of anything, he'll take it. He's back down to one-ninety-nine and he might still be able to kick his ass to one-ninety-five by the time he has to face Mom's music—it's still not _good_ , for all he's on the right track, but it's better than being some two-hundred-plus-pound fatty-fatty-two-by-four.

Misha brushes a hand down Richard's stomach, gently squeezes one of his enormous love-handles. Richard just shrugs and wanders back out to the room, flops onto the bed. Misha follows and drops down next to him— _shit, shit, please don't creak on me, bad. please don't be creaking. please be strong enough to hold us both_ (he's probably imagining things, and he tries to keep himself grounded by resting a hand on Richard's hip)—and they kiss. Softly, at first, like whispering. Not that it stays that way. Richard sucks on Misha's tongue, Misha bites on Richard's lip, and there's nothing behind the actions—no fire, or ice, or poison; not the smallest spark—every motion is automatic, things they know they should do but that they don't feel.

They've fucked each other since their argument, but it's been just like this. Mechanical. Making a show out of holding each other, being close to each other. And it still smacks Misha upside the head when Richard tells him, "Babe… we need to talk."

Misha winces at the sound of that, flinches but makes himself nod anyway. He's pretty sure about what Richard has to say—it's only going to be one of a few things, and the only one that's any likely, Misha doesn't want to hear—but he still mutters, "Okay… About what?"

"About us," is all Richard says before just going off. He doesn't beat around the bush—throws out, _I think we need to break up_ , without even hesitating, and the way he runs a hand back through his hair says he's of the mind that this is the easiest thing he's going to have to say—but once they're on the same page there, Richard's all a bunch of complaints and shit, things that don't come as a surprise because he's brought them up before, but that still don't really register, don't manage to penetrate the haze that, instead of feeling like a cloud of hunger or exhaustion, is all a mess of _oh my God, this cannot be fucking happening_.

"I love you, Misha," Richard whispers to the floor as he gets down to the end of this, absent any of the affectionate nicknames and the levity he usually has when throwing out those first three words. "But I just can't… This isn't about not loving you, or not wanting to be with you. I want to be with you—"

"So then why can't we just—"

"But I don't want to be in some fucked up threesome with your eating disorder."

Misha's already got his mouth open to say something, but those words smack him in the face and he stops. Slumps back against the wall and swallows thickly, like his throat's coated in mucus and he can't breathe. The dirty look Richard flings Misha's way hits like a kick in the teeth. That's not a look you give to someone you love—it's a look you give to someone you hate for making you love them so much.

"Don't even fucking give me that, 'I don't have an eating disorder, I have an anxiety disorder' garbage, either," Richard says, forcing a snarl. "You know why you put so much work into denying it, don't you?"

"It's not that much work, really," Misha huffs. "Most people get that I'm too fat to have an eating disorder."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about." Groaning from the deepest part of his chest, Richard shoves up off the bed and flops onto Jensen's instead. "You know why you waste so much time and energy doing that? Denying that you have an eating disorder? _Because you have a fucking eating disorder_. It's like this cranky, ugly little voice in the back of your head, feeding you all sorts of crap that you don't even question, like you're worthless if you don't weigh X or if you gain Y pounds, or if your mom and the voice in the back of your head think you're fat—"

For just that moment, it's like Richard's inside of Misha's head, reading his mind—but the last thing Misha wants is for Richard to know that. Fortunately, Richard keeps talking and spares Misha the chance to fuck up, start talking, and make his current situation worse (the way that he inevitably would, because Misha's a menace and he fucks up everything he touches):

"And like I said, I love you. I love _you_. I love _Misha_. I love the guy who wants to be an evil overlord so he can fix all the world's problems without a bureaucracy or some shit. I love the guy who sings Britney Spears at karaoke and drops everything when I'm having a shit day, or when Jensen or Shepp or Vicki's having a shit day because he's just that selfless. I love the guy who threatened to castrate his best friend's ex—in fucking _public_ , too, and in front of a fucking _cop_ —because Cory dumped Jensen with a text. I love the guy who asked me to marry him with a Ring-Pop."

Misha doesn't know where Richard thinks he's going with this, but he wishes that he couldn't feel anything.

Richard sighs. "Where I'm going with this is that I love you, but I don't love that thing—your disorder. It's not you. It's not even a part of you—it's the thing that's controlling you and hurting you, but it's _not you_. It's like you're possessed, or like there's another person in the room and he looks like you, he talks like you enough to fake it, but he isn't you, not really—at the bottom line? It doesn't even matter what the thing is, specifically. It's just a _fucking problem_ —a fucking problem that could _fucking kill you_. It's self-destructive, it hurts more people than just you—"

(Misha wants to object to this, and say that it's hardly anybody else's fucking business, but he suspects this would just exacerbate things. He wants to say that if he's hurting people so much, why are they hanging around instead of ditching him, but that sort of seems ridiculous, considering he's in the middle of getting dumped. He's pretty sure he's just tired from getting his stuff ready for Collegeboxes to take away and hold for the summer—he's tired, and not in the mood to be accused of anything like Richard's doing, and it's making him cranky.)

"You're amazing when you're yourself, Misha, but you're like a whole 'nother person when your disorder takes over. A whole 'nother ugly, twisted, _dark_ kinda person—and… I just. You are so fucking smart, you know that? You're a goddamn genius, but you are _so. stupid_ about this issue and I just don't get it. And I mean…" Trailing off, Richard heaves another sigh, and pulls something out of his pocket.

"Support networks are an important part of recovery," he says, wrapping his pudgy hand around whatever it is. "Everything I got from my counselor says so, and I want to keep being part of yours. I know how you are about trusting people—I want to stay friends, if you'll still have me, because I don't want to just rip the rug out from under your life when it's gonna be hard enough for you to get better, but… I can't do that for you. I can't fix you, and my own shit's pretty fucked right now—I mean, my mom… and with my dad and everything… So I guess I'm being selfish, but I need to take care of myself first, and so do you."

(Misha could tear Richard's face off right now for that kind of condescension, but his stomach churns with the knowledge that he's only pissed off because Richard's right. Because he can't object to Richard needing time or space or just not having to deal with a relationship when everything else in his life is fucked all to high Hell. Because he knows that the part of him screaming _THIS ISN'T FAIR_ is the same, petulant part that objects to stupid shit like the schedule of his Saturday morning getting thrown off not because he can't go for a run, but because Nickelodeon's showing the wrong cartoons.)

With his free hand, Richard grabs one of Misha's wrists. The _something_ he nudges into Misha's palm, curls Misha's hand around, feels hard and smooth and warm—and plastic, maybe… probably plastic… Richard sighs as he kisses Misha's knuckles. "Look… when we're both in a better place?" he says. "When everything's better for both of us? …If I'm lucky enough that you're still single then, I hope you're still hanging onto that, because I'll want to give us another try. But… first, we both have to get our heads worked out, alright?"

Misha supposes that yeah. Alright. It makes sense. He doesn't have anything else to say, though. Words aren't working right, and his head isn't either, and even if they were, Richard begs off to finish up his packing. When the door's slammed shut behind his exit, Misha's still slumped against the wall. He opens up his hand and— _fuck my life… but why is… I can't believe he fucking_ —sitting there in his palm, Misha finds the former Ring-Pop, the one he gave to Richard months ago… Misha doesn't even have the energy to cry. Thank whatever's decided not to screw him over. Crying would just make everything more real.

 

As their last week on campus drags on, though, Misha finds that everything is so much worse than the break-up hanging over his head. First of all, the, "we'll stay friends," thing Richard threw up at him looks like it was all just talk—it's been three days since Misha's seen Richard in person, two since Richard's answered his phone, and just over thirty-six hours since he texted back, "k thx," in response to Misha saying he could give Richard's stuff to Shepp.

Worse than that, he ducked down to Matt and Richard's room yesterday, thinking he could see Richard one last time before the summer… and he found Matt sitting alone at his computer, looking thinner and fitter than he did before he started putting on weight last year ( _you miserable fucker,_ Misha couldn't stop himself from thinking and barely stopped himself from saying. _Fuck you, Matt. Fuck you and fuck whatever diet you're on that actually works_ ), with none of Richard's stuff left anywhere. Apparently, he'd left for Tennessee not all that long after Shepp swung by to pick up Richard's stuff.

So much for his speech about Misha's support network and knowing how important it is. It's so important that Richard couldn't even say, "goodbye."

Secondly, even before Richard's coop-flying stunt, Misha's had practically no time to himself for the past week. It's like losing his relationship status kicked Jensen and Vicki into some frantic, mother hen mode of watching over Misha at meals, insisting that he eat way more than he should because, apparently, in their universe, he's not eating enough. Third, and as a direct consequence of Misha's second complaint, when he rolls out of bed and goes to check his weight, he finds that his weight's slid back up to two-oh-two.

Two-hundred and two pounds—and just when he'd gotten on the right track to maybe break one-ninety-five before Mom got here. Misha wants to punch the fucking wall, put his fist through the wood and wire and fiberglass and have to get dragged off to the ER. Bad news just has to come in threes.

He's dying of nerves as he packs the remainder of his stuff up into his boxes, his suitcase, his backpack, and his duffel. Jensen tries to rub his shoulders, hoping it'll get Misha to calm down and breathe a little easier—but it doesn't. Misha doesn't expect it to, either. Not when he knows how this bullshit's going to go down when Mom gets here. Helping him put his books away—and eventually taking over, when Misha's head starts spinning because, no matter what he tells himself, he can't calm down and just breathe properly—Jensen tries telling Misha that it'll all be okay. There's no way Misha's mother is going to be crazy like Misha seems to think.

"I mean… My mom's been on my ass about how fat it's getting, but even she doesn't bring it up first thing, after not seeing me for all that time… They're mothers. They love us and they worry, and maybe they're kinda harsh about it sometimes, but it's all born out of love—and the love part comes first. Always will. Besides, she seemed like a nice lady before… A little neurotic, but so are you, so…"

Misha shakes his head, leans it back into the corner by his bed. He doesn't have the heart he needs right now, the heart that's strong and brave enough to tell Jensen that he's so far off-base in expecting Misha's mother to have any kind of socially acceptable reaction to her baby boy's weight. Especially not to tell Jensen that he can't base his expectations of Mom off of meeting her three times, all while either moving into or out of a dormitory. He just says that Jensen's said, "love," enough times to make it stop sounding like a word.

As it turns out, Misha's right in worrying about Mom. Oh, sure, her first move—once Dad and Vicki have started carting Misha's stuff out to the van—is to hug him, but before she even hints at letting go—"Ooh, is it just me, Baby, or did you get _chunky_ this semester?"

Misha shrugs. Doesn't hug her tighter, but wishes he could hug himself, or curl up like a pillbug and hide in a cave somewhere. She throws in a fake laugh—all airy and full of nasally static and hints of _I'm just joking because we know and love each other so much, obviously we are comfortable enough to poke this sort of fun at each other_ —but once she lets him go, takes a moment looking him over, her claws come out instead:

"Oh, yes, you did," she sighs, tutting at him and shaking her head. She drops a hand, nudges past his sweatpants, and pinches at a stray roll of flab on his waist. Jiggles it. Doesn't even let Misha have the time to pretend he's somewhere else, because she gets to talking again: "My Lord, you certainly did get fat, didn't you. I should have expected this… Just because you missed the Freshman Fifteen hardly means you'll stay so lucky, after all, and I'm sure you've probably cheated on your diet more than a few times, hmm. Haven't you… You always did have such trouble with temptation."

She lets go of his paunch, but only to glide her freezing cold hand along it, over to his hip, where she grabs onto Misha's love-handle instead. He gasps. Whines as she shakes it around by way of trying to size it up. "Yes, yes, yes," she sighs. "That's some substantial jelly-belly you've gone and put on, not to mention _these_ … But never fear, Baby—I'm sure you'll be able to lose all this over the summer, now… Where's that boy you've been seeing? Aren't your father and I supposed to meet him, finally?"

"We, uh—Richard and I… Mom, we…" Misha's not sure he wants to _die_ —that seems sort of awfully permanent, even with his whole face and neck burning up with the shame of this moment—but he'd really appreciate it if the floor would just open up and drag him down for a brief vacation in Hell. It'd be nicer than this bullshit. Scratching at the back of his neck, staring intently at his shoes, Misha admits (barely above a whisper): "Mom, Richard and I broke up, and he… he left last night. To go home… to Tennessee."

"Well, I don't think I can blame him for that, considering the state of your waistline. Unfortunately for you, it's really quite a tragically common story, Baby." Smiling like the edge of a knife, blinking up at Misha with a razor's innocence, she pats him on the gut, nudges her fingertips into his flesh—from anybody else, it might be a fond, affectionate gesture, even if it makes Misha's insides squirm and makes him feel like he's going to break down sobbing. From Mom? It's a way of emphasizing just how big he is, just how much she disapproves.

"Maybe," she says, all cheerful and sugar-laden and matter-of-fact. "Maybe if you'd made a better effort at staying all nice and trim, your boyfriend wouldn't have had to dump you. He was probably doing you a kindness, if he really loved you—I'm sure it doesn't seem like it now, but you've obviously gotten complacent, if you stopped minding your weight to this extent. No doubt he saw that. You wouldn't date him if he weren't intelligent… Just think of this as a perfect motivation to lose this spare tire you've adopted."

"Wait just a freaking second here—"

Jensen speaking up shocks Misha back to reality—the reality that's not limited to him and Mom, anyway. His head jolts up; he whips around to look at Jensen… And his heart skips several beats at the dark, snarling look on Jensen's face. His cheeks flush an angry, bruised shade of purple. His green eyes look like the sky before a tornado. His brows have knotted up like a hangman's noose. In the nigh on two years they've known each other, Misha's never heard Jensen's voice get so rumbling thunder low, never seen Jensen look so willing to risk wringing someone's neck.

"Look, Mrs. Collins," Jensen huffs, "I know you probably think this isn't any of my business—"

"It isn't," she says, regarding him with quiet, honeyed contempt.

"But don't you think you're being a little unfair? I mean—it's not like Misha's unhealthy. He's sure as Hell not _fat_. He was holed up with a broken leg for the first half of the semester—he's been dealing with that, with healing from it since then—he's been out running practically every day—"

" _Practically_ every day isn't every day, Jensen—"

"Yeah, well, he's been beating himself up enough about his weight, and what does the stupid number matter as long as he's _healthy_?"

Knowing Mom, knowing that unmoving, icicle smile on her thin lips, she's got something up her sleeve like telling Jensen that she'll parent her son however she sees fit, thank you very much—and knowing Jensen, he wouldn't take too well to that.

So Misha tries to put this bullshit to bed before someone explodes, mechanically reciting: "No, no—Jenny! Jensen, please, just… Calm down. Please—I swear it's okay, you don't have to… Besides, she's right—no, don't make the face, okay? …She's right to be concerned, after how chubby I got. About the, er. The jelly-belly I've got?" Since he's looking at the floor anyway, Misha feels so much less shame for what he does next—for grabbing his stomach with both hands, pushing it forward, and shaking it by way of showing off how big it is.

"And she's absolutely right to say I should diet this summer," he says, not admitting that he was already planning to do so—Jensen could probably guess that anyway. "I—I owe it to myself, Jenny? You know? …I owe it to myself to get my weight under control before it gets to be an even bigger problem. Before I slip up and get really, _really_ fat?"

Mom coos and brushes her fingers down his cheek, which hits Misha like getting smacked. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jensen gaping at him, and, heart sinking, guilt worming through his chest, Misha can't bring himself to look Jensen in the eye.

 

Before they go their separate ways for the next few months, Jensen makes sure to pull Misha away from Mom, clench him up in a hug (one that Misha burrows into like it might keep him from having to go home), and tell him that he gets why Misha had to say what he did—it was a shock at the time, but Jensen gets it. He gets not wanting to have an argument turn into a full-blown **_Situation_**.

With Misha's hair tucked up underneath his chin, Jensen adds, in no uncertain terms, that sure. Yeah. Jensen's going to be working an internship until September. But if Misha needs anything— _abso-fucking-lutely anything_ —then he damned well better call. Because Jensen will drop everything to come and help him. He swears to God he will. And it's not that Misha doubts him—Jensen's one of the only people left who Misha trusts—but…

He's got no idea how bad Mom's going to be about his weight. No idea if she'll even make an active big deal out of it, or if she'll just turn up the passive-aggressive bullshit until Misha's thin enough for her. And, besides, clinging into Jensen's hug only indicates Misha's need for reassurance. He needs to know that Jensen's really not mad at him. He's already lost Richard—he can't lose Jensen, too.

Misha spends the drive home not saying anything unless he's spoken to, and he can't even bring himself to turn on his ipod, just in case someone tries to ask him anything. Any unintentional disrespect might just make Mom angrier with him. After about an hour, Vicki tries to talk to him, but Misha's answers are monosyllabic and he can't stop staring out the window. Mom's disappointed in him and it's bad enough. He can't get Vicki disappointed in him, too.

When they all get home, when they get the boxes and bags inside the house, Misha assumes he might get a chance to relax and breathe. He knows the storm is coming. He can't escape the inevitable explosion that got hinted at in all the heavy tension that settled in and hung around for the mostly silent drive… But the drive up to his parents' house isn't a picnic. He assumes Mom might be too tired, that she might leave well enough alone, at least for a little while.

Unfortunately for him—unfortunately for his nerves and his stomach and the swimming feeling in his head—Misha is wrong. He's not in his pajamas and flopped out on the living room sofa half-a-minute before Mom tells him, "Oh, don't get comfortable, Precious—it looks to _me_ like you've done just a bit too much of that in the past six months," and grabs him by the wrist. Hauls him to his feet and up the stairs—which creak underneath him in a way that makes Misha's stomach try to plummet out of him—and locks the bathroom door behind them.

"I think you know why we're here, Baby," she tells him, pulling a roll of measuring tape out of her hip pocket and arching her eyebrows. She's ice-cold and every bit the part of an interrogator. If she wasn't one in a previous life, Misha will go to his five-year high school reunion without being forced into it, when the time comes.

"I know you probably agree with Jensen on some level," she says, far too calmly to be allowed. "I know that you probably think that I'm being unfair, or even mean—but I'm only doing this because I care about you, Sweetheart. Like you said: because you've got to get a handle on _this_ —" She splays her whole hand over his ( _disgusting, revolting, oh God why is she touching it, how could I even let myself get this fat, how fat I was before, **so nauseatingly huge**_ ) stomach and _squeezes_ — "Before it turns into an even bigger problem."

His lip quivers and Misha keeps his eyes on the wall behind her. Tries not to show her weakness, much less how much he feels like he'll be sick at any moment. It's almost a kindness when she chimes, "Scale, Misha! _Now_ …"

Nodding, he complies. For all her aggressive tut-tutting, for all the _oh, Misha, I thought we'd agreed about this_ and the _Pumpkin, that's over forty pounds isn't it—Baby, how **could** you_ and the _your sister doesn't have any trouble keeping her figure, you know_ , at least the bright red _202_ doesn't come as a surprise. More like a relief—for as little as he's eaten today, Misha still feels huge, still can't shake some feeling that maybe the scale's wrong because he must've put on five pounds, at least. And after nearly six months of waiting, of being forbidden to measure himself, he's not even against the idea of her measuring his waist.

He can feel something gnawing at his nerves as he watches Mom work, watches her deft, slender fingers work with the tape, wrapping it around the fullest part of his middle until she announces—"Forty-one-and-a-half inches." And she sighs. Looks up at him with her version of sad puppy eyes. "Why would you even do this to yourself, Baby. I thought you were _so proud_ of getting your waist down to thirty inches…"

Misha tries to explain himself—tries to find any kind of words for this… All that comes out is a bunch of stops and starts, a bunch of stumbled-over half-assed attempts at answering her—but he shuts up as soon as she raises a palm. For following her unspoken command, Misha gets _rewarded_ with a series of brief pats on his stomach. With Mom's hand coming back and resting there once she's put the measuring tape away.

"My terms might not be what you want to hear, Baby," she says, pressing her hand into his ( _soft, flabby, gross, repulsive, squishy, **disgusting**_ ) pudge, "but they're what you _need_ to hear—and they're really quite simple. Every inch of _this_ —" She squeezes, wrapping her whole hand around an impressive amount of paunch, though not nearly all of what's accumulated on Misha's middle (it has to be intentional; she's too smart for it to be an accident; she's trying to show off how she's straining to hold onto him, trying to remind him of how fucking _huge_ he is)— "I want this _thing_ to go away—and not just part of it, either, Baby. _All_ of it. You were at one-sixty when you last had a physical with Dr. Fulton?"

She pauses. Purses her lips. Waits for Misha to nod. Then continues: "Well, when the time comes for you to have another one in August, you'll be down to at least one-seventy. You'll be back at one-sixty when we go down to move you and Jensen into that apartment, and if you're not?" She lets go of his paunch, but drags her fingers along her belly's pudgy underside, knocking them up to make his stomach jiggle. "If you're not down to one-sixty by that day, then I certainly hope you have some alternate means of paying the rent and buying food, because your father and I will not be helping."

With a huff, she stares at him until he looks up and meets her gaze. "Do I make myself understood, Dimitri?"

Misha sighs. Nods. Says he understands and that this is fair—that everything she's said is fair. He wonders if it's sick that he's not even lying. But he doesn't get time to think too much about that. She kisses him on the cheek. Says, _don't worry, Darling—you'll have my help through all of this, with minding your diet and your exercise; we can still nip this problem right in its bud; we'll get you all nice and slim again before you even know it, then you can find some new boyfriend… or girlfriend… whoever you want. You'll find yourself someone who's better than your Richard ever was_ —

And Misha's pretty sure he should feel… something. Anything. Even some kind of anxiety or dread that maybe he won't manage to lose the weight. But the only thing he feels is a gaping hole in his chest. After a shower, he skips dinner. Fires off brief, purposefully vague texts to Shepp and Jensen, because both of them got asking how being back home is going. Tries to sleep that half-dead, empty feeling off, even knowing that he probably won't succeed.


	6. Reading into every word you say (it never happened; we were nothing).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the plot's still on holiday in Narnia, and everything becomes a long, slow burn up to an eventual explosion. One that's more of a whimper, anyway.

The first few days of summer break aren't Hellish; they're just Hell. But Misha powers through them, intent on getting used to it. Intent on making all this into his new normal.

The weigh-in sessions are the worst part. Mom has no schedule, never lets Misha get comfortable in any expectation of when he'll get dragged upstairs, measured, and forced to climb on the scale. The only consolation prize is that, regardless of that lack of predictability, Misha sees the results he wants. He doesn't feel them—no matter what the numbers say, he keeps on feeling huge—but according to the scale and Mom's measuring tape? The weight's coming off.

Every morning, like clockwork, Mom rouses him at five-thirty. He gets a breakfast of two egg whites and a protein shake—reaching for the orange juice on the first morning gets him told off because, "It has too much sugar in it, Baby—fruit's not on your diet for a while yet"—and by six o'clock, he's outside, rain or shine. He's jogging through the neighborhood, allowed to go wherever he wants as long as he doesn't stop or head home until the timer around his wrist beeps. It's set for an hour, so he'll get at least that much of a workout in.

He supposes that he could try to fake her out, get just sweaty enough to trick her into thinking he's been working out. He considers it until he's puffing and his legs ache after only a few laps of the park by his and Vicki's old elementary school. He stays out at least half-an-hour after his timer goes off, works his way up to more and more time without even realizing that he's doing it; he just doesn't pay attention to the time. On Saturday morning, the fourth day into his and Mom's project, Misha wanders back home, thinking he's only been gone an hour-and-a-half. He toes out of his sneakers at the front door, wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water, feels his legs wobbling far too much…

He's in the midst of chiding himself and chugging his water— _god, Misha, you've really fucked it up this time, haven't you? This is just awful… We used to be a fucking **runner**. Senior year's track team star. Getting worn out from an hour of jogging is just pathetic… How the Hell can you even try to justify this? **How?** It's disgusting. We're disgusting… We'll stay out longer tomorrow. We have to; we need to fix this_ —when Vicki storms into the kitchen and demands to know where in the Hell he's been. He shrugs and tells her he's been out for a run, and she just wrinkles her nose. Gapes at him like he's grown a second head.

Splutters a bit and shoves her glasses back up her nose, and barely manages to ask, "When did she send you out?"

"I've only been gone since six. And I got back, like… just now? Maybe five minutes ago? So it's not a huge deal or anything… and aren't you up kind of early for the weekend anyway?"

Vicki sighs and, for a moment, looks like she's either going to disown him for stupidity or beat him upside the head with a clue-by-four. "Misha, it's quarter-past- _ten_."

"…Oh," is all Misha has to say to that revelation.

It sure explains a lot about how his legs feel, at least. Unsure of what else he can say, he slumps back against the counter, stares at the photo of himself that's pinned to the fridge by way of encouraging him not to snack—it's a snapshot of him, Jensen, and Vicki from last year's move-in day. Which means Misha probably weighs about one-sixty in it, like he's supposed to be working toward now. It feels so far off, so unreachable—but the photo does its job, which helps. Any time he goes near the fridge, he stops. Looks at it. And most of the time, he manages to talk down his hunger by thinking about how he looks not, how he used to look.

" _Oh_?" Vicki parrots after a long moment of silence, grinding her thumb and forefinger into the bridge of her nose. "You're not even going to try explaining this? You're just going to say… ' _oh_ '?"

Misha shrugs. Finishes his water and thumps the glass down beside his hip. "I already explained where I was, though? I was out running. I told you that. What other explanation do you need?"

Vicki's shitty mood, on the other hand, explains itself. She gets in these strops so easily, now that they're back home for the summer—and it all goes back to the misguided way she wants to show her concern. How she thinks he's fine without losing weight. The issue she takes with his working out pales in comparison to how she gets at other meals, over the pre-made lunches that leave Misha's stomach growling or when Mom dishes up tiny portions of dinner for Misha and skips giving him some of the more problematic dishes and items—no mashed potatoes, no pastas, no butter or dressings for his salads…

Misha's hungry, but he doesn't actually mind all of these restrictions. Mom's logic makes perfect sense to him. He got fat from eating too much, eating bad things, so he should skip the shit food and cut down his calories if he wants to get thin again. Besides, it's not all that different from what food Misha would be limiting himself to, if he were in charge of his own diet—and maybe Vicki was on Team "Misha, you need to eat something more substantial than _that_ ," but he _did_ manage to lose almost twenty-five pounds with that diet.

It just fits that he'd need to cut back even more when he needs to lose forty-two.

But Vicki just keeps protesting, saying Mom should let him have more than this, or that's not nearly enough, considering how long he went out running earlier, how he went out after lunch, too. She doesn't back off when Misha asks her to, and one night, Dad even gets in on it. Says it won't kill Mom or Misha if she lets up on him just a little bit, doesn't make eyes at him over the dinner table, or lets him have seconds instead of watching him pout at his empty plates and telling him he doesn't need anything else, or gives him a day off from working out, or… something. Mom doesn't even have to stand up for herself or her methods, though. Misha does it for her.

When he chimes in—when he tells Dad and Vicki, _Look, I know how it has to look, but Mom and I are on the same page here, okay? I agree her terms. I agree with the endgame. I agree with the methods we're using to get there. I agree with everything she's said. About me. About my weight. I feel completely fine, I feel like I'm eating fine… so can we please have dinner without everybody yelling at everybody else? Just, please back off of her already_ —he's not even really standing up for Mom. He's standing up for one of the last ounces of control that he has left over his own life.

If Mom's going to call the shots about his diet and his exercise, and if Vicki's going to keep prying like she does—if Dad's going to stick his nose in and try to influence Mom's actions like he has any idea what's going on, and if Shepp and Jensen are going to attempt to turn every text conversation into some mess about Misha's _feelings_ —then Misha will be damned if he gives up the right to choose whose rules he submits to, what. It's the last thing he has, and nobody can take it away from him. He won't let them.

 

Sunday night is the first time Mom checks his progress, and Misha's already back down to one-ninety-nine, which earns him a pat on the stomach and a toxic chirp of, _You're on your way back to where you ought to be, Baby_. He knows she's just trying to encourage him; he only wishes she could do that without touching him. In the morning, he can't stop thinking about the way his belly shook underneath her hand, and he only finishes half of his breakfast before going out for his run.

He's back at the house by seven-thirty, no matter how he wants to stay out longer, because he has to fumble through a shower and pack up his lunch (a salad with a cut-up hard-boiled egg, because Mom says he needs his protein). By eight, he and Vicki are in her car, driving down into town. They've both got their jobs from high school and last summer back—Misha at the Book Nook, and Vicki at Play It Again Sam's, the used music store—and for the first time in days, Vicki's smiling at Misha. Talking about something in positive terms instead of trying to pick a fight.

According to her, this is a good thing for reasons aside from getting money. (Which, to be fair, is Misha's big incentive here—he can't see any way in which he won't need it. It's probably some kind of fluke that his weight got back under two-hundred—something about how he got there in the first place and it was a different fluke that put him back up to two-oh-two—and even if he somehow manages to lose any more weight, he's probably not going to get down to one-seventy, much less one-sixty, so there's going to be a bunch of shit to sort out. He'll need to be able to pay the rent—not all of it, sure, but he can't just expect Jensen's parents to pay for everything, either. It wouldn't be fair or right or anything.)

"You need more time outside of that house," Vicki sighs, whipping around the corner onto Main Street, heading for the public parking lot behind the record store. "And not just outside on a job, I mean," she adds as though anticipating what he wanted to say. "Bless our mother's twisted little heart, I _know_ she thinks her motives are pure but, Brother? You need a break from her crap. Deal with some shitty customers or your coworker's kid or something."

"Heather," Misha says, just trying to keep his head nestled against the wall. "Michelle's daughter's name is Heather."

Vicki shrugs and says, _whatever, her name should be Too Cute To Live, from how you talk about her_ , and Misha just wishes that he could be more like her. Adopt that ducky way she lets bullshit just roll off her feathers—his life would be infinitely easier if he could give up caring, actually be as distant and unsympathetic as he pretends he is. At the very least, he needs a better spine. One that doesn't try to snap under the force that Michelle and their boss, Mr. Murphy, put into hugging him—one that doesn't quiver when Michelle smiles at Misha, combs a hand back through her blonde pixie cut, and says that he looks good ( _yeah right, I'm sure my flabby ass looks so damned good right now, pull the fucking other one, 'Chelle_ )—one that doesn't try to buckle when Mr. Murphy sneaks up behind him while Misha's shelving the new arrivals in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section, claps him on the back, and announces that he needs to start a grant or something, whatever he'd need to start to give kids scholarships to Misha's college.

"Well, I'm sure they'd appreciate that," Misha deadpans, digging a stack of Neil Gaiman paperbacks out of the box he's working with. "And not that I mean to question your generosity or anything, but… why's this, then?"

"Well, for how they helped you out, of course!" Mr. Murphy beams, saying this like it's nothing and self-evident, and as soon as Misha feels an enormous, pudgy hand drop to his stomach and start pinching at the flab, he wishes that he hadn't asked what his boss meant. "Now, don't get me wrong, son—you've always been a good lookin' kid…"

_Yeah, I bet,_ Misha doesn't say, lest it lead somewhere he doesn't want to go. Like a fight, or like someone else thinking that he has a problem when he doesn't. _I've only been skinny a couple times before—I wasn't even really skinny, just kind of thin and yes, there **is** a difference—and I'm sure I was totally cute during all the other stretches I spent looking like the Great White Land-Whale._

"But y'looked like you'd've fallen over if not for that sister of yours, back at Christmas—and now, lookatcha!" ( _I **have** looked at myself, though. I've looked at myself more than you have, no disrespect meant, but looking at myself is exactly how I know that I've let myself go and get contented, that I gave in to my weakness, and that I **need** this fucking diet more than I need to breathe._ ) "Whatever that school's doing must be good, for you to pick up a little Buddha belly like you've got…"

Misha freezes, right in the middle of sliding a copy of _Anansi Boys_ onto the shelf. He feels the color drain out of his face, feels his knees wobbling underneath him, feels a haze crash into his brain and something twist and writhe like snakes around his lungs— _God fucking… Sir, did you have to use those words exactly? I know it's there, it's not like I've fucking missed my fat fucking stomach… but you couldn't call it something fucking else? Why'd it have to be what my ex-boyfriend called it?_ —Misha shrugs, and fortunately, he doesn't have to suppose anything because Mr. Murphy still has thoughts to share:

"A little bit'a comfort looks good on you, son," he says with a contented sigh, patting Misha between the shoulder-blades again. "I mean it when I say you looked some kinda sickly at Christmas, and before then… You had for a while in there. 's good to see you looking healthier."

Misha nods. Forces the tightest smile that his pursed lips can manage. Shoves the books onto the shelf and supposes that Mr. Murphy's probably right—but as his boss wanders off back to his own laundry list of tasks to handle, all Misha's thinking is: _yeah, thanks a fucking ton for reminding me how far I still have to go. Like I didn't already know that I'm way too fucking fat._

When his lunch break comes, he only eats a cucumber and part of the egg before pitching the rest. After Vicki takes them home, Misha sneaks out for a run before dinner, which he picks at before begging off to bed, saying that he doesn't really feel so well and maybe he should go turn in early. And once he's in his room—once he's away from Vicki's inscrutable facial expressions that could be judgmental or concerned or twenty other things—he stretches out on the floor for sit-ups. After all, he's not going to get rid of his stomach by sitting around and waiting, and he can do them even when his head is spinning.

 

Despite his anxieties and for all he really doesn't feel better (doesn't feel thinner, or more competent, more in control of himself or anything), Misha finds that the weight comes off. His waist gets trimmer. Every subsequent weigh-in with Mom finds his numbers diminishing. Instead of chiding him or tut-tutting, Mom's reactions get… not quite nicer, but easier to hear, at least. She smiles every time he's knocked off a few more pounds, and that makes Misha's heart feel lighter than even his successful losing streak does—

Until he remembers that one-ninety is still thirty pounds off from his goal, that one-eighty-five still has twenty-five pounds to shave off before it'll be any kind of acceptable, that he's doing well but that's just compared to how much of a big fat-ass he let himself turn into. Not compared to the thirty-inch waist that he used to have, and the muscles he had in his thighs, and everything that he still needs to get back. Then, everything comes crashing down and, since chasing a runner's high helps him take the weight off and makes him feel less pathetic besides, he toes into his sneakers, heads out and just _runs_. Runs like he'll die if he fucking stops.

Sometimes, if only vaguely, Misha wonders if this is really okay. If _he's_ really okay. The days go on, and he has a harder and harder time making himself eat anything. He looks at food, any of it and especially things he knows he likes, or even just catches a whiff of it, and he starts to feel sick. One night after work, he comes home from a run to find Vicki baking some of Grandma Krushnic's famous blue ribbon-winning cookies—the from-scratch oatmeal raisin ones that she _knows_ are Misha's weakness—and just walking through the front door, Misha's pretty sure he's gonna hurl up his internal organs.

(It's not any better after he takes a shower and wanders down to the kitchen for some water, maybe some coffee. It's still not any better in the morning, when Vicki shoves some of the _things_ into his lunchbox. They're not as pungent or as soft as they were the night before, but even knowing that those _fucking cookies_ in there with his salad, his grilled chicken, and his hard-boiled egg—his _good_ food, the food specifically picked because it's not noxious and awful and going to keep him fat, make his weight skyrocket back up to where it was—just the thought of his _safe_ food sharing space with those cookies, puts Misha ill at ease for the rest of the day. Leaves him feeling wobbly and unwell, even after his lunch break, where he doesn't even eat at all.

Fortunately for him, Michelle had a rough morning—she and Heather got home late from a Girl Scouts camping trip down in West Virginia; they got up late and had to rush to get Heather to her day-camp, which she wouldn't skip because she's obsessed with her swimming lessons; and Michelle turned up to work without a lunch… So Misha offers up his own, since he'd planned on going out anyway. Michelle accepts. He shrugs, supposes that he'll go down to the diner—Sarah, one of his "high school friends," is waitressing there this summer anyway, so he might get a discount, and some variety's nice to have, since he's been eating the same thing for lunch, every single day—Michelle ruffles his hair with a smirk and says he should watch out. Can't go getting used to any routines or he might stop being everybody's favorite space cadet future overlord.

And he agrees with a smile, asks if she wants him to pick up anything special for her (she thanks him, but says she's fine). But once he's out of the bookshop, out in the fresh air, all Misha does is wander around. Jog around the park a bit— _probably not enough to really matter_ —and swing by The Daily Grind, the coffee shop, on his way back to the Nook. He picks up the biggest black coffee that they'll give him and two of the cherry Danishes that they make onsite, the ones that Heather likes—he throws one out, to make it look like he's eaten something, and gives the other to Michelle. Says to tell her little girl that Silly Misha says _hello_.)

The worst part is that, for all this process happens quickly—for all Misha's entire day can get derailed by this sickening cloud that crashes into him so fast—sometimes in the blink of an eye, sometimes longer but still not all that long—for all it always catches him off-guard like a lightning flash, everything seems to slow down when it happens, just so Misha can feel every. single. step. Everything that leads up to him wanting to toss his cookies. Everything that makes him want to wretch until he passes out. Isn't it bad enough that he has to end up nauseated? Does he really need to have this happen, too? Does he really need to have these sensations shocking through his bones and muscles, wracking his entire body, making him wish that he'd just die, since he apparently isn't strong enough to avoid this shit?

( _Of course you need to feel this, Misha,_ he tells himself—or maybe it's something else—it's the voice of reason in this equation, he knows. It has to be the voice of reason because he's a petulant child and he'd never manage anything without assistance, and since no one in his life will give it to him, he has to make one up for himself. _Of course you need this. You need to understand or you can't get better,_ it whispers like a lover, all warm and soft and like a salve for the burning in his nerves. _Dying won't fix anything, you know that. You don't really want to die, anyway—you think you do, because it might be easier than cleaning up your mess, but you don't really want it. You can't want it when you don't even understand what it means to die. What would you be fixing anyway if you died? Nothing. All you'd do is be leaving behind the things you fucked up. Toughen up. Be responsible. Get your shit together and go for a run—it's better than eating and you'll feel better for it._ )

The hunger comes first. After a while on his diet, he gets full so easily that Mom's occasionally had to push him to eat more of his dinner— _You know, Baby, I do know what I'm doing and I measured out the portion sizes just right for you… Getting your weight back down shouldn't have to mean losing your strength, too_ —and even thinking about that prospect makes Misha feel cramped. Stuffed to the brim. Ready to blow up. He's started faking sick more often, making his voice quaver and sound as piteous as possible, just to get out of having to answer for himself or having to choke down too much—but his stupid, fucked up brain and his stupid, fat stomach forget all this whenever he's too close to something delicious.

Rationally, he knows that he'll just get a few bites in and want to die—if not from being too full to eat, then from the knowledge of just how weak indulgence makes him, just how much he'll set his progress back if he gives in—but out of nowhere, he'll feel so empty. He'll feel his stomach trying to cave in on itself, and he'll wonder if maybe he shouldn't give himself a break… After all, he's doing so well, a little treat might not be that bad… Except that he won't be doing well, if he gives in. Except that _a little treat_ is never just a little treat—one treat leads to several, leads to bingeing, leads to getting fat, and Misha can't get fatter than he is already because that's a way of giving up. Resigning himself to being disgusting…

Which sparks on the self-loathing, reminds Misha of the facts he hates acknowledging because he doesn't want to remember how weak and helpless he really is: _who the fuck do you think you're kidding, Misha? Getting too full's not going to stop you. Getting too full's never stopped you before, why should it fucking start now? It can't stop you. Nothing can stop you except for you—and you have to stop. It's the only way to save yourself from what you know you'll do if you get any closer to that shit, which is stuff your face like the fat pig you really are. Don't you want to get better? Don't you remember what having control felt like? You can't fix anything else, but you can fix yourself—all you have to do is stop smelling that food, stop looking at it, why do you even want to eat it when you know what it's going to do to you? When you know you won't be able to stop? It's that kind of disgusting complacency that fucked us up in the first place, that made you fat in the first place._

Which really leads to the sickness—that feeling that Misha should just throw up and clear this out before he gives in to whatever's so broken in him that he just can't get right… He never throws up. He just doesn't eat, not unless he's forced to, and even then, it's not much. Because that seems like the best option, at the moment—at every moment. Doesn't matter when the moment is—and the logic's sound. Misha knows it is. If he feels nauseated, then he shouldn't eat and make it worse. Simple as that.

Some part of him—some _weak_ part that questions whether or not getting thin again will make everything that Misha's doing worth the pain—some part of Misha wants to reach out about this. Talk to someone. But Vicki's blowing everything all out of proportion—telling her one thing will mean she hears another, and whatever she hears will no doubt be awful and require her to make a problem out of everything. Which will only end up keeping Misha fat. Shepp's internship keeps him busy. Not too busy to text at work or send instant messages, and not too busy for the occasional call, but definitely too busy to have to deal with Misha's problems. Especially when they wouldn't be problems if only Misha could be strong enough to accept the consequences for his gluttony and how he fucked himself up.

Jensen's never too busy for Misha, for his best friend—that's what he says, anyway, but whenever they talk, regardless of the format in which they do so, Misha's initial reaction is to ask about Jensen. About how he's doing, crammed up in a shitty studio apartment in Brooklyn. Living with Danneel while they're both working unpaid internships where the bosses barely treat them like people, let alone like they're intelligent and competent and qualified to do more than just go get coffee and make copies. And Jensen always needs to unload, to some degree or another—he always needs to talk, even if it's just to complain that the A/C unit fell out of his and Dany's window, so everything's hot, and humid, and muggy, and _gross_.

( _Fuck your complaining, Ackles,_ he wants to say, but only if he could do it without making Jensen misinterpret things and worry, the same way that Vicki misinterprets things and worries. _Seriously. For fuck's sake, Jensen, I don't care how hot it is in the City. I don't care how sweaty you are or how everything smells or whatever. Apparently, I'm losing weight and I still look pretty fucking fat—trust me, you don't even **know** "gross."_ )

Aside from everything else, Danneel's still got her mind set on slimming Jensen down, pushing different diets and exercise ideas until he goes along with them—"Not that _that's_ going especially well, but to be honest, I haven't really been trying. Sure, I put on a few more over the semester, but I'm not too bothered, and I mean… She's calmed down about it a bit, I guess? But anyway, I've got more important shit to worry about than whether or not she can buy me designer jeans for Christmas… Okay, yeah, I've worked out a little, but it's not anything serious or nothing. Shit, you get the daily recommended exercise shit just walking from our place to the subway, then from the subway to where I work, and I'm on my feet all day, and I met this guy, Eliot, up in Central Park a couple times… He was pretty cool, but it didn't work out. I'm not so much into the random hooking up thing, I guess…"

—and then Misha feels like an asshole for even thinking about complaining to Jensen in the first place. How could he even consider that an option, when Jensen has legitimate problems? When Jensen's getting hounded out of a place where he likes his body because his mother and Danneel are too small-minded to just leave him be? When Misha's got no real problems, just a mother who's concerned, if overbearing, and love-handles, and a stomach that's too fat, and thunder thighs, and a plan to get himself back down to where he belongs, but that he keeps almost fucking up because he keeps looking at food and wanting to eat? When none of this would be an issue if Misha could just be strong and stop complaining, accept the consequences for his actions and handle them like an adult, instead of like some screaming little kid?

When it's pretty much Misha's fault that Jensen has any extra poundage for Danneel to complain about? Because if he hadn't been so _stupid_ , if he'd kept his mouth shut about how fat he was getting and just tried to fix it in peace, if he'd handled his responsibility to himself without burdening everybody else who ever tried to care about him, if he hadn't gotten everybody else concerned, then maybe he could've just lost his weight in silence and Jensen wouldn't have felt like he needed to be bigger than Misha or whatever the fuck was going through his head.

It takes Misha a while to even think about reaching out to Richard. Sure, he has the idea pretty early, but he knows better than to try and burden Richard right now—Richard's mom is sick, his dad's an asshole, he's probably getting dragged to prayer circles over his homosexuality, and all in all, he just doesn't need to hear his ex-boyfriend crying about problems that he created in the first place. The first time that Misha actively considers making this call, it's even worse than that: he wants to call Richard and get self-indulgent and ridiculous all over him, just because this, once and for all and more than anything else ever could, should prove that Richard's wrong. That Misha doesn't have an eating disorder. That the only thing wrong with him—aside from the obvious issue of him being fat—is that he's compulsively irresponsible and keeps acting like other things, or circumstances, or people are to blame for what he did to make himself this way.

Richard dumped Misha to try and sort his own shit out, so both of them could get their heads together. Somehow, Misha doesn't think that having to listen to him whine about his bullshit so-called "problems" would be conducive to Richard managing that. Richard's got shit to take care of that's serious. Richard's got real problems on his shoulders. Richard's got the short straw, here. Misha just can't accept the consequences when they come to, and no amount of running until he feels faint will fix it.

Once he's lost twenty pounds, Misha finally decides to try and act on this idea—not any of the vindictive ones, but the desire to just talk to Richard, even over texts if Richard decides that Misha doesn't get to have his nerves soothed by the warm, gentle timbre of that tangy drawl he's got… Misha's even thinking that he could admit that Richard was right about him all along, about everything. Thinking that he could say those five words, _I have an eating disorder_ , and mean them, and listen to whatever Richard might have to say about how to go get help, get on the right track, get in recovery—because, in the back of his mind, he's really thinking that Richard was right.

Once he's lost twenty pounds, Misha isn't satisfied but Mom might as well throw a party, for how she reacts—one-eighty-two isn't where he needs to be, not even close enough for Misha's comfort, but she still hugs him all over and smiles, kisses him on the cheek, coos about how proud of him she is (especially for doing so well while he's been so ill this month), and starts baking. She never bakes. At least, she doesn't like to bake. Misha doesn't trust it, doesn't trust how calm she seems or the stillness in the air. She can't be proud of him while he's still so heavy—and even if she's lying to make him feel better, even if Misha, on some level, appreciates it, he knows it's all a lie. He begs off, says he feels well enough for another run—his second one today, after how long he went out earlier.

By the time he comes back home, about two hours later (he thinks—the timer's long since gone off but he hasn't paid attention to anything but his heartbeat and the sound of his sneakers on the pavement), he ducks into the kitchen for a glass of water and finds Mom's still in her good mood. Still beaming up at him with all of her teeth, getting dimples like she never does, smiling at Misha like he's managed something there's a real need to praise when he knows that's still so far off. There's a plate of cookies on the counter—homemade, oatmeal raisin, cooling off but still assaulting him with that sweet, heavy scent of theirs—and for once, Misha manages to resist them. He glances at them once, then refills his glass in silence, and he's almost done—almost free to escape up to his room—when Mom sneaks into his personal space and curls his free hand up around a cookie.

Misha stares at it. Blinks at the thing and tries to talk himself down from the way his head spins and his stomach reels at the smell of this _concentrated bad idea_. Barely registers that Mom's saying anything—he picks up on the sweetness in her voice, but the words don't come through until she tells him, "Well, since you've been doing so well with your diet, Honey-Lamb, I thought you'd earned a treat—just the one, of course, but… Go on. You deserve it."

Misha stares at her. This is a test—it has to be a test—a test of his will or his commitment or something that he should be minding better—if he slips up, then there's something wrong, and Mom will know it, as though she can't just tell from looking at him—there's no way Mom would smile at him so earnestly or pat him on the cheek without some kind of underlying, not while he's still a baby Orca. But what kind of test, and there could be several—Misha has no idea… He rubs his thumb along the underside of the cookie, over the rough, hand-shaped texture given to the oatmeal.

If he eats this, then he's weak. If he doesn't, then he has a problem. It's the classic, "do these jeans make my ass look fat" conundrum, except even worse because Misha's not just damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Because the stakes are higher than just getting someone pissed off for the whole night. Because Mom has the power to make his life a living Hell over… pretty much anything she wants. She could refuse to help Misha pay the rent. She could leave him floundering and depending too much on Jensen and his parents, having to work a job or two on top of handling all his coursework—she could leave him to scramble after money _and_ top grades, and eventually, he'd have to crash and burn.

Worse than anything else about this moment, even worse than the uncertainty of it and how Misha can't read anything from Mom's expression, is the thought of what could happen if Mom did something like this to him. Even if he doesn't get into Edlund's seniors-only seminar, Misha has to take on a rigorous academic load this upcoming year. Has to keep his reputation as an outstanding student. He has to beat every high bar he's set for himself because, soon enough, he'll need to get into grad school, and they won't want him unless, by some miracle of self-promotion, he can sell himself as anything but a twinky, neurotic perpetual fuck-up—and concentration's made his head spin, lately, without the looming threat of classes he can fail and assignments he can bomb—Misha's chest starts getting tight, like any air is too much, like his lungs don't fit in him, and tries, however briefly, to soothe himself with the thought that he could always sell himself to pay the rent, the thought that some people might be fucked up like he is and otherwise into fucking chubby hookers—except that a new worst case scenario occurs to Misha.

Even worse than the rest of what he's considered: Mom could decide to listen to Dad and Vicki. She could change her tune—the one she's had since before summer break was even an issue, the one she's had for Misha's entire life. She could up and decide that Misha's sick with some nonsense eating disorder that he doesn't really have—and then she can't force him into treatment, let alone a rehab (where he'd be stealing a spot from a legitimately sick person, but she'd condone him doing that because it fit her vision of reality). She couldn't do that legally, anyway. But she could manipulate a, "yes" out of Misha without breaking a sweat. She could call up campus and their Health Services people, talk to the Nurse Practitioner and some Dean of Something-Or-Other, get Misha stuck on a leave of absence that he doesn't need to get treatment for a problem that he doesn't have…

There has to be some kind of balance here—there has to be some kind of compromise that doesn't necessitate having to break his diet so egregiously or feeling like he's going to be sick—but all Misha can think of is trying his best to fake Mom out. Eating just enough to throw her off, but not enough to fuck him up, not enough to fuck up his diet.

Misha's skin crawls from taking one bite out of the cookie. After chewing it until it's mush, he has to choke it down, stifle a whimpering noise that tries to claw out of his throat. He takes another bite, repeats this process. Then a third, because there's power in the number three and maybe, just maybe, this will be enough balance. Maybe Mom will get it through her head that, regardless of whatever way she thinks he's broken and fucked up, Misha's strong enough—he's fine. Once the third bite's down, he sets the cookie down on the counter and says as much—no, really, he's fine, he feels kind of sick but he's fine, he'll come back for the cookie later when he doesn't think he's gonna puke.

"Maybe I just pushed myself a little too hard, just now?" he supposes, flinching at the furrow in her brow, at the backs of her bony fingers pressed up like ice against his forehead, at the murmur of, _Maybe we should go see Doctor Fulton sooner, Misha… You've been feeling sick so often lately… It worries me, Baby_. He shakes his head, tries to ignore the way his stomach starts to kick him and tries to make himself believe everything he's babbling about: "It's really nothing, Mom, I swear—just… I kinda stayed out a while, and I did earlier, and it was really hot? There are, like, rule things about not pushing yourself too hard when it's hot out, right? I might not've been properly hydrated either, and that would've made it worse? That's what Vicki said anyway, I don't know, she's better at the science-y stuff than me…"

Tilting her head ever-so-slightly to the side, she considers this. Considers him. Furrows her brow that much more, lets those wide blue eyes of hers (the same ones that Misha has, because he got them from Mom) spark with some inscrutable emotion (perhaps concern, like she says; probably something else, probably something more judgmental), grazes her teeth along her lower lip the same way that Misha does when he's confused or So Very Disappointed—she's probably the latter, more than the former. It's the only thing that makes sense (that explains her expression and the too-gentle feel of her knuckles brushing into his cheek), and Misha feels his stomach twist that much harder, because it has to digest guilt as well as an unsafe amount of a dangerous food, something he definitely shouldn't have eaten, even in such a limited capacity.

_Do you really have to look at me like that?_ , he screams without making any kind of noise, because yelling at her would just exacerbate things and probably get him chucked back into a therapist's office, since clearly seeing Doctor Waters back in high school has worked out so fucking well for Misha. _Seriously, Mom—I dare you to look at me with something worse than that expression. I dare you. Go on. I'll wait. Take all the time you need to find something else to put on your face. Can't you just get pissed off at me, instead?_

"Well, you don't feel warm," Mom finally says, but doesn't take her hand off Misha's ( _puffed up, fat, disgusting, fat, chubby like a chipmunk, fat, fat, fat_ ) cheek. "You look sort of pale, though, Baby. Are you sure it's nothing?" ( _Yeah, like I can really tell you anything._ ) "You know that you can tell me anything, don't you?" ( _Jesus Christ, are you inside my fucking head?_ ) "It's not always been easy with us, has it? But I'm your mother, Dimitri—I'll always love you… You can tell me anything."

_Is it really so fucking hard for you to see that I can't?_ "Well, I mean… Mom, I would. Except there's nothing to tell, you know? I'm just… inexplicably, maybe, not feeling all that well. And I think I should really go lie down?"

She kisses him on the cheek before letting him wander off, and once Misha has the unspoken permission to leave, he doesn't go to his room. He doesn't lie down. Instead, he locks himself in the bathroom—steps up on the scale again— _I'm getting fat again, I have to be, there's no way I could eat all of that junk without letting myself blow up, how bad is it, how bad is it, how bad_ —and sees the same _182_ that he and Mom saw earlier.

It's not a surprise. Not exactly. He couldn't expect to just drop any more weight—and anyway, all of the surprise comes from how he hasn't gotten bigger… At least, he hasn't in any way that the numbers show. So Misha stands up and shuffles around to stand in front of the mirror, takes in the image that it reflects back at him—he prods at his cheeks, which maybe aren't quite as full as he's thought. He reaches down to prod at his stomach, finds it smaller, slightly less pudgy… Far from perfect, far how good he's had his body before, but he might not even be fat anymore. Not technically. Not _really_.

But as he gets a roll of pudge between his fingers, all Misha can think about is how he's fooling himself. Trying to, anyway. And how he _can't_ let himself believe the bullshit he's pulling, because then he'll slip up and even if he's not fat _now_ , he will be soon.

Taking deep, shuddering breaths, Misha leans down, stares at the sink, props himself up with his palms flat on the counter. He tries to think about something else, anything else. He just ends up wondering if he's always felt this way—if he's always had this fear… He supposes that he hasn't, but it wasn't new back in January, either.

Misha's stomach turns, growls at him. He flops onto the edge of the shower. Takes his phone out and without even thinking about it, plugs in Richard's speed-dial shortcut—doesn't want to think about how badly this could go, tries to tell himself that it's not going to because Richard promised to be here, to help, and maybe he just didn't answer his phone before he left because he was busy and packing and his dad's a dick—Misha's breath catches in his throat as he waits for the phone to start ringing, and instead hears:

_We're sorry; you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again._

Misha wrinkles his nose, staring down at his phone. He tries calling Richard three more times, hears the same automated voice informing him that the number's disconnected. He rocks back so far that he nearly falls back into the shower, then stretches out his legs, propping them up on the toilet seat and furiously tapping at his phone's screen. Facebook says that Misha's lost a friend, and when he tries to click to Richard's page, it's gone. Deleted. He checks on Richard's blog and Twitter next—nothing. The blog's still there, but everything's been locked down or deleted, save for some sticky post announcing that Richard's blog is no longer being updated.

_But why would… but you **said** that we…_ Misha slams his phone down and stumbles back over to the sink, the mirror.

The mirror's verdict is quite simple, a complete one-eighty from what he thought he saw before, smacking into Misha like he's on the receiving end of a cold drink in the face: he's not losing weight fast enough. He's still huge.

Even worse, there's the control issue and all of its ugly heads—it always comes back to that and it's the place where everything is so much worse. He can't control his mother and her complexes, how she expresses her concern for him or when she decides that he's okay, that she can love him. He can't control Vicki and the way she doesn't understand what's going on, not really, certainly not as much as she thinks she does. He can't control that Shepp's internship sucks. He can't control that Jensen's whole summer sucks. He can't control the fact that Richard apparently hates him so much as to uproot his entire life, just to avoid dealing with Misha—since, no matter what the fuck he said in May, Richard's number is deactivated. He's never on Skype when Misha is, his Facebook is gone, no one's heard fucking anything from him, not even Shepp or Matt (according to the texts they send back), all of the evidence adds up…

What's there to conclude, save that Richard lied to make Misha feel better? Gave him back that stupid plastic ring to make him think that everything would be okay, that they could really work out—but how could they? Richard was right to leave him. Richard had to see what no one else realizes—namely: that Misha ruins everything he touches. Misha can't play nicely with anybody else, not when he can barely manage to handle himself without wrecking everything…

_Not anymore_ , he swears to himself, wrapping his hand around the fat on his stomach again, clawing at it and biting back the pain, that little rumble of weakness that the flab enables in him. Misha's not going to let this carry on. He needs to get better, so he will. On his terms and no one else's.


	7. Addicted to a certain kind of sadness.

Misha's terms are simple: he's easily satisfied by nothing less than the best. The curse he suffers from is being able to know when he has and hasn't provided that, and until this point, he hasn't even come close to matching his expectations. Giving himself the results he needs.

Everything has to go, or else find itself revised to better suit Misha's needs. Certain things can stay, of course. Because certain things are safe to keep around, or good for him—restricting what he can eat, cutting back his calories, that's the whole point of being on a diet; working out is just a part of that constellation, part of maintaining a good weight once he gets down to it because it's not enough to just keep his interactions with food limited; but clearly, the current extent to which Misha's doing both isn't enough. All of what Mom insists on isn't doing enough. Isn't effective the way that it needs to be—none of it is. He has to try harder.

Not to mention that it's not Mom's place to make the rules for him, decide what does or doesn't work for Misha. She's clearly not going as far as she needs to—she might even be trying to keep him fat, or at least, he wouldn't put it past her. So Misha starts taking charge of things himself. He gets up earlier and works out longer before he has to go into work. He ducks out of the house before Vicki's ready to go, walks to work and walks back home when his shift's over. He uses his lunch break to go on jogs around the park. Eats as little as possible, just enough to keep him he from getting faint or weak while he's working lest he tip someone off, make someone get it in their head that they need to interfere, and he throws the rest of his lunch out, unless he can give it away.

It's a similar story while he's at home. Mom still thinks that she's in charge of his portions, of picking and choosing what Misha's allowed to eat—and Misha doesn't argue with her, to her face. He just works around her. It's not that hard to push food around on his plate, make it look like he's eating more than he really is. It's not that hard to skip out of breakfasts without getting through half of his egg whites, on the days that Misha actually has to deal with her cooking for him. It's not that hard to beg off from dinner, having hardly touched his steamed asparagus or grilled chicken or whatever Mom says that he's allowed to eat tonight. Not that he doesn't appreciate her concern—not that he doesn't appreciate that she understands he has weight to lose, still—but she doesn't really get it. She doesn't really understand how far Misha has to go.

Soon enough, Misha has no trouble outright skipping meals. Even on the mornings when he doesn't get to eat before he goes to work. Sometimes he doesn't think about it until he gets to his lunch break or stands up too quickly, feels a lurch in his stomach that sets his head spinning, and remembers that oh, right, he can't just stop eating entirely. Unfortunately, he's still stuck in this body, and it still requires energy to work properly— _don't give it too much to work with, though; it's getting its fuel from eating the fat that you've stored up on it, and you can't jeopardize your ability to get rid of it_ —so he'll give in, eat just enough to keep going.

A few weeks off from when his doctor's appointment is supposed to be, Misha's weight crawls back down to one-seventy and he expects Mom to squeal in delight. Kiss his cheek again and tell him how proud of him she is—after all, she did it when he'd only been down twenty pounds. She did it and even made him eat a cookie before he'd gotten any kind of close to meeting one of the goals they'd set. It just makes sense for her to throw another party…

Except all she does is hug him. Quietly, dangerously so. The sort of quiet that only comes because there's a storm coming, or because somebody's planning something. They don't say anything for long enough that his skin starts crawling. She holds him closely enough, tightly enough, that Misha wonders if this could bruise him— _And I bet you're not even doing this because you love me. You probably just don't believe the scale or that goddamn tape measure. You're shocked because I'm still so fucking huge._

As Mom reaches up, brushes the back of her frozen hand across his forehead the way she does so often lately, she says… something. Kind of indistinctly and muttering under her breath, but mostly, Misha's just not listening. Not enough to tell whether or not she's saying something about how fat he is, or how skinny he still has to get, or… anything else. It's probably some miracle that he makes out the two words _so high_ —just like how one-sixty was always a bit high for his weight, for her.

Just like how he could be there and feel great about himself for once, how it could last right up until she saw him anywhere near a cookie and had to remind him that _a moment on the lips, forever on the hips_.

Mostly, Misha can only hear how his breaths sound so shallow next to hers—how his heart's pounding so hard against his chest and he can feel it, like it's banging around on his ribs and could probably break them—how still and thick the air feels around him, how _fat_. He thinks that breathing doesn't burn enough calories to break even with how many have to be in the air right now, and he wants to make a break for it, get out of here and lock his bedroom door and call somebody because he _shouldn't be thinking like that_ …

Except he doesn't have anybody to call. A fact that reminds Misha of its existence as Mom tightens her hold on him just a little bit more, squeezes him closer. Richard's gone, probably forever. Jensen's got enough problems without Misha throwing his in the heap, too, and whining at Jensen to fix them when Misha's the only one who should be intervening—the only one who has any responsibility to clean up his own goddamn mess. Shepp's busy, and his bosses suck, and it's not like the Richard situation's only hitting Misha—Shepp and Matt were friends with the dick, and they still haven't heard anything… They can't be handling that well.

If it were any other week, he could go down the hall to Vicki's room, but Vicki's down in the City with Jensen and Danneel, sleeping on their futon while she visits her girlfriend—some photography student from school, with a messy black pixie cut and lips like a hooker on _Law and Order_ reruns and enviably slender legs and negligible hips and one of the most awkward names ever, _Ana_. Misha guesses it'd be worse if her name were _Mia_ , because then it'd sound like an eating disorder and like his name, so there'd be some kind of twincest thing there, if Misha wanted to read into it like that. He's probably the worst brother ever, hating Ana without even having met her more than once, but he's clicked around her Facebook, seen all kinds of pictures of her, flouncing around in different situations, skinny the way he only wishes that he could be.

Even just thinking about her makes him sick. Thinking about her getting all _entangled_ with his sister hits Misha worse than how much he hates Ana for having that body. Does it make Vicki a hypocrite? Telling Misha all kinds of shit while he was chubby, like how he wasn't fat and even if he was, it didn't mean anything negative about him? Misha has no idea. But anyway, it's probably Ana's fault, because there's no one else around to blame—Vicki, maybe, but the only thing she's really doing wrong is not being here when Misha's just far enough off the deep end to wish he could tell her everything and maybe have her not just unilaterally blame Mom. Especially when it's not her fault that her son's such a mess.

Finally, Mom pulls away and says something Misha can hear around the white noise he's stuck with, looks up at him and whispers, "You're feeling alright, aren't you, Baby? You got here so quickly… It's not bad, not necessarily, but…" She reaches up to brush his hair off his face. "I just wish I knew for sure that you're okay… The weight won't stay off if you're just sick, you know—if you _are_ just sick… You're not doing anything to hurt yourself, are you?"

Misha shakes his head and swears he's not—that he's fine, Mom; of course he's fine; he knows better than to do anything stupid or dangerous—and it doesn't even come out as a lie. Because he knows that he's _not_ doing something stupid, something dangerous—he's having some extended moment of weakness right now, sure, but he's not really going to give into it. Even if Vicki were here to cry all over, Misha couldn't tell her anything. Not yet, not while he's still so heavy. It's not dangerous and stupid to be on a diet.

Because all he hears is what Mom said before she asked her question— _the weight won't stay off if you're just sick, you know_ , repeating itself, over and over in the back of his head until the only options for getting rid of it are puking and going out for a run.

 

And then, even when he goes with the latter option (waits for Mom and Dad to turn on some _White Collar_ marathon after an early dinner that Misha hardly touches, then sneaks out like he's some shit-head teenager again), he hears Mom's statement in his sneakers thumping on the pavement. He hears it in the wind through the trees, and in the crush of the humidity on his lungs, and in every sick, shuddering beat of his heart. Those words keep scratching, keep egging him on, and since they won't leave him alone, he just keeps running—off his usual route and into town, past the bookshop and the used record store, the way he likes to go around the park. He doesn't even have the wrist-timer on, this time. He doesn't pay attention to time, doesn't notice that it's getting dark until the street-lamps have already come on.

Eleven words, and she said them so… softly. Like she really had a reason to worry about anything with him—anything aside from him getting fat _again_ —and they just hang around, keep nagging at him, start sounding like venom and ice instead of how he _knows_ he heard them. He hits a wall, somewhere in the middle of the park… First, he slows down, thundering forward through some haze in his head. He stumbles. Stops entirely and has to force himself to keep going, because he can't just stay here—he's not done with his run and he has to go home besides—but his legs wobble underneath him. Knees quiver, just like Misha's lips get doing.

His head spins. The world lurches around him and the streetlights all seem brighter. And the next thing he knows, Misha's doubled over on his knees, flopped into the grass off the path, slumped against and clinging to the black metal bench for some kind of support while he sicks up. It should hurt, and it does. Sort of. The vomit and the acid and the bile burn as they come up his throat—his stomach hurts like there's a vise clenching on it, like something's kicking him and that's why every round of _stuff_ comes up—but past all that, there's some weird flood of relief. Something warm and comforting washing over his muscles. Something that's so strangely gentle about it, even when he starts coughing and hacking and trying to get more out, even when he knows he should probably be ashamed of himself or something.

More than probably. He's got to look a fucking mess right. Even if he were pretty like Vicki's girlfriend, though, there's the part where he is _puking in a bush_. At the very least, he's alone. No one gets to see him being sick—or he gets to think so, anyway. Right up until he feels the soft brush of fingers down his back, hears someone ask if he's okay.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_ —Misha starts throwing out the same excuses that he always does, plans to just act drunk if it's a cop because that'll get him taken to the station, instead of to a hospital—but stops right in the middle of his umpteenth round of _I'm fine, I'm okay_ when he finally sees who stopped and crouched down next to him. Sees the floppy blonde hair, makes out her pretty face and harsh jaw and bright green eyes, even with how the light behind them frames her mostly in shadow—Sarah.

The person who stopped to help him just had to be fucking _Sarah_. Even if he couldn't make that out by seeing her, there's no mistaking the way she says, "… _Misha_?"

For one thing, she can't help drawling on those two syllables, throwing in that _everyone in the world is so beneath me_ sneer that she does so well, just like she always did in high school.

For another, even through the note of concern that infiltrates her voice, hearing her say his name in this context just doesn't sound all that different from hearing her say it in the old contexts—all of the contexts that used to make him want to puke, that he's done so well at not thinking about since graduation. _Hope there's still something left to eat, looks like Misha beat us here again_ —in the middle of a crowded lunchroom, slinking past him with Aly, her perky little ginger friend, in tow.

_Misha, you know this is the line for tickets to Homecoming, right? The snack machine line's over there_ —while sitting behind a table with Smarmy Nick From The Soccer Team, selling said tickets, right before having a private little laugh-riot because Nick had to make some joke about how Misha probably had to get a cousin to go with him, since no one else would show up to Homecoming with _him_. (Misha's cheeks flush with that shame all over again, not to mention the angry wish that he could really have a date and show them who was a loser, just like in the movies… except they were right. He didn't have a date. He was just buying tickets for Vicki because it was the last day to get them and she was out sick.)

_What are you even doing here, Misha? We're doing **Much Ado About Nothing** for the spring play, not **Hairspray** … and even if we were, you can't play Tracy Turnblad because she's a **girl** and you just like wearing your sister's jeans. Or a female cousin's anyway, since Vicki's so skinny but… I mean, that's why they're so tight on you, right? Because they're fitted with girls' sizes? They run smaller than guys' jeans_ —in line for the first, last, and only play that Misha bothered going out for. (Which he dropped out of as soon as the cast list went up, even when it had him down as Benedick, even when he'd been losing weight for months by then, because Sarah got cast as Beatrice, and either way, he guessed she had a point. About the only main character he wasn't too big to play was Falstaff.)

"…Misha?" Sarah says again, jostling his shoulder a bit. "…Are you _sure_ you're okay? I mean. You don't _look_ okay. And puking's generally not a sign of somebody being okay…"

"Oh, uhm… Sarah," he says thickly, like he's got a case of cotton-mouth. "Hey… Sarah. It's, er. I was just… Marathon. In training for, and I was… Fancy seeing you here, long time, no see, it's kinda crazy, am I right?" ( _Jesus Christ, **seriously**? I can't just get some help from a random good Samaritan? It had to be fucking **you**? Just… fuck this, I want a do-over, I don't even need any help, not least from **you** , and Hell with everything, I'll just get home myself._)

Misha can't even get some momentary satisfaction out of her getting fat in college because her face looks about the same. When she stands up and helps him to his own feet, her body looks about the same, as well—she's still thin, and pretty, and slight of build but just athletic enough to not look frail. Looking down at her makes him want to start running again, even with his legs trembling underneath him like they are—but trying to beg off and shove past her just makes him feel sick again, and apparently, he wobbles enough for Sarah to get in his way. Insist that, no, really, she just got off her shift at Aubrey's, the diner, so if he needs a ride, it's fine—

"And considering you can't hardly walk? And you were just puking pretty badly?" she says. "Like, seriously… My car's just a block this way. Let me take you home? …Please?"

Misha's not entirely sure what other option he has, at this point. It's like his worst fear about this whole mess is actualizing—it's like he's getting caught—and the only positive side of things is that any point of comparison Sarah has available to her is from high school. So, Misha supposes as he flops into her passenger seat, at the very least, he can reasonably tell her that there's nothing wrong and what the Hell does she even know, she doesn't have any real idea of what he's like at other points. Points that don't involve him throwing up in shrubbery, for instance.

 

The trip back to Misha's parents' place is the single most awkward experience he's ever had in a car, and not because Sarah's radio is broken so they can't just turn on some music and ignore each other. Under all the directions he has to give her, there's a lurking sense of… _something_ —something at least kind of noxious—something that Misha wants to clear the Hell out of the air already, but that he really doesn't want to acknowledge or talk about or otherwise give any kind of attention. Mostly because it's probably related to what she saw him doing, and he can guess what she's got to say about that. None of it's good, or helpful, or anything Misha particularly wants to hear, though.

Because she has to have something to say about it. Because Sarah always has something to say about everything, especially everything about Misha—that's the whole story of their relationship in a nutshell. If years of mutual loathing, followed by two years of acting like the other didn't exist just because they weren't trapped in the brick-and-linoleum cage of high school, can even be called a relationship. Because Misha's always been the fuck-up and Princess Sarah couldn't let him tarnish her perfect high school world without constantly reminding him that he didn't belong.

Because, right now, she's probably mulling over the best way to phrase an insult just to get it under his skin— _So is that how you got fit enough for the track team in the first place? Puking and trying to convince everyone you'd worked hard to get skinny? God, and I thought it was good when I convinced everyone you had cancer…_

As they turn onto York Street and drive past their old torture chamber— _Ashman High School, home of the Roughriders!_ , which the sign out front announces in bright red blinking lights, right before flashing the same old message about having a safe and healthy summer—it turns out that Misha's right. About Sarah and about her having something to on her mind, about her mulling over the words. Just not about the specifics of what she wants to say:

"So that happens a lot?" she asks, with the lights glimmering on her face. She looks like a serial killer, at the moment, instead of just some snotty little gossip queen and (possibly) former bully—there's something about the intensity behind her eyes and the way the moonlight and the street-lamps play off her cheeks, cast shadows over hollows that look so much deeper than they did before.

"Well, if by that, you mean do I end up puking in public places on any kind of regular basis, then the answer's no. Seems like kind of specific criteria, I guess, but I'm not you or anything, so…" Misha huffs and slumps his head into the seatbelt. "Besides, I'm in training for a marathon. Like I said already. I just pushed myself too hard tonight. That kind of shit happens when you push yourself too hard. Especially when it's humid or otherwise likely to make you sweat. You get dehydrated. Maybe a little hypoglycemic. Your body protests and makes you puke. You can Google it."

_This is the best perversion of my half-baked knowledge of scientific facts that I could have hoped for. Eat your heart out, everyone who ever called me smart. How fucking smart am I now._

"Yeah. Sure thing, Edward Cullen," is all Sarah says in response—decidedly not the reaction or the agreement to let well enough alone that Misha wanted. At the stop sign by the old student parking lot, she reaches into the breast pocket of her uniform shirt, slips out a stick of gum and hands it to him. Doesn't drive again until Misha inspects it—it's sugar-free, only five calories besides; not the best thing in the world for his diet, but it could be worse, and it's better than letting his mouth keep tasting like death and bile, he guesses—and sticks it in his mouth. Pockets the balled up wrapper with a murmured _thanks_.

"No problem," she says with a sigh. "You sorta get used to needing it after a while. I'm just lucky no one notices how often I take some from behind the register."

There's something in what she's saying—something deeper, more meaningful—that Misha's supposed to be intuiting. He can feel it nagging at him, like it's clawing at the back of his neck, and he still keeps his response limited to, "Yeah, well, you're pretty. People let pretty people get away with murder."

"I guess you'd probably know all about that firsthand."

Misha needs a moment to consider that, but thinking the words over doesn't make his nose un-wrinkle or his eyes un-squint. Doesn't make this statement—much less the fact that it's coming from Sarah—make anymore sense. He wants to throw out some witty rejoinder, but all he can manage is chewing. Smacking the gum against the inside of his mouth. Thinking whether or not five calories are too many until he says, thickly, "Did you just call me pretty?"

Sarah shrugs. Supposes that she did and there's nothing he can do about it. "Pretty sure I'm not the first one to do it, either," she says. "Or else you just hang out with blind people. Or assholes. Maybe both."

"'scuze me for being a little floored over here, Princess," Misha deadpans, "but I'm sort of… You know, this is sort of throwing me through a loop, more than a little bit, and I mean… You've never called me pretty before."

"Yeah, well, I've thought it for a while."

"Oh, let me guess—you've thought it since senior year, right? Since I got skinny and socially acceptable, for whatever it was worth when I was still kind of a freak? Still _am_ kind of a freak… And let me guess the rest: you only kept picking on me so badly that year because you thought I got hot without all the fat in the way, and it was just the high school version of yanking someone's pigtails—save me the sob story. Doesn't make it suck any less that I _busted ass_ for two years to get my body like that and you kept calling me fat. Or telling people I had cancer. Or HIV. Or a drug problem. Or a drug problem and that's how I _got_ HIV—"

"Okay, so, you're right to be pissed off, and maybe I was a huge bitch in high school—"

"Oh, _maybe_ ," he snaps, not entirely meaning to but not minding the vitriol. How he sounds like a viper, even to himself and especially when he's not really mad at Sarah. Not completely. Not like he enjoys the fact that she came and had to be the one to pick him up, but it's even worse that he couldn't get home on his own power, that he doesn't have anybody else he could call if he'd brought his phone with him.

"I always thought you were pretty, though," she says. "Like, really pretty—"

"Well, I'm sorry, I guess I'm stupid because I must've missed that in all the times I got home and _cried_ because of shit you said." Misha's eyes sting. Burn like he might start up crying again—which might kill him as much as getting caught in the middle of doing something stupid and dragged into talking about _things_. His lungs twist around and scream like he just got cigarette smoke blown in his face. He keeps his eyes on the road ahead of them, tries to will himself not to look anywhere, much less at _her_.

"…I've never even told anybody that, you know," he mutters. Sighs. Stares intently at the floor because the road looks like it's judging him. "Not Vicki. Not our parents. Not any of my friends—the ones I've made in college, I mean—my ass has wound up in therapy, and doctors' offices, and nutritionists', and fucking, 'feel your feelings instead of eating them' goddamn fat camp, and I've never told _anybody_ that you used to make me cry."

After a while, when the tires sound too loud on the pavement, Misha finally looks up and over at her. Sarah's gone pale and her eyes look huge. Spreading over her whole face like oil spills and everything. He tells her to turn left at the next stop sign, and she says, "I thought I just made up the fat camp thing… I didn't realize… If I'd known it was for real, I never would've…"

"Yeah, right, you never would've told anybody—again, sorry, Princess, but I'm kind of having trouble buying that after how you, oh. Let's see. Told Alyson when Vicki had a crush on her, and told Nick when I thought I had a crush on him—"

"That wasn't malicious or anything, though—it was just… They were my best friends. What the Hell was I supposed to do?"

"And how you told everyone that Melissa was a cutter—"

"That's exaggerated, okay? I only told Aly, Nick, and that fucking Nurse, and I only talked at all so she could get some fucking help—"

"And how you told everyone about Nick's dad hitting him for being gay—that's just _low_ , Sarah." He's looking at her, sure, but as Misha rolls his eyes and carries on, he's not seeing Sarah. She might as well not even be there. "I could understand you trying to ruin _my_ life—we weren't friends, we weren't even on good terms—but Nick was supposed to be your _friend_."

"That's exactly why I told people, dumb-ass!" The car jerks—the tires squeal on the pavement—she's going white-knuckled around the steering wheel and her arms are trembling, and even in the faint light of the nearest street-lamp, Misha can tell that Sarah's lost all the color in her face.

Maybe he got carried away in picking at and calling out her old shitty behavior. _Yeah, you think, genius?_

"Look, I know what I did wasn't fucking smart," she says, in a voice that's barely above a whisper and shaking every bit as much as her arms. "And I _know_ I should've known better—I know I should have expected shit to blow up like it did, I know I should've thought more about it or something, but I didn't mean for everything to get so… I only told a couple of people, Misha. I told Aly, and James, that touchy-feely counselor woman, and our homeroom teacher, and I only told them because Nick was one of my best friends. Because, yeah, he could be a jerk sometimes, but I was sick of him getting smacked around, or put in the ER, and beating himself up over it when it wasn't his fault…"

She sighs. Slams her hands against the wheel's rim. Then another time. And again. Some yowling noise claws its way up out of her throat, and she chokes it back enough to say, "And it doesn't even help, you know? It doesn't help that he _forgave_ me before he did it because he still fucking hanged himself, and what the fuck else am I supposed to think about how it all went down? What the ever-fucking Hell am I supposed to think about why he finally did it? Except that I was trying to _help_ but all I did was kick him over the edge when everything else was so fucked up for him?"

She's not crying, for all she looks ready to start up the waterworks. She's pale still, and trembling all over now, and Misha's probably doing both of them a courtesy when he reaches between the seats and just slides the shift around, puts the car in park without asking. She lets go of the wheel and smacks it again. Another time on top of that. Bites on her lower lip until it looks like she'll draw blood at any moment. Misha's not sure he could blame her, if she wanted that—he'd probably want to hurt himself, too, in her position.

Looking away from Sarah and her emotional outburst, Misha curls his arms around his stomach. Shuffles in the seat and chews his gum, intent on destroying it, if he has to. Chews harder. Chews his tongue and can't really bring himself to care how much it hurts. He can't shake the feeling that he's just wandered into some woodland clearing and seen a goddess getting naked, and now he's going to get his eyes burned out for his trouble. Like he's just witnessed something private and indecent. Something that he's not allowed to see, that he has no fucking _right_ to see.

His whole face and neck burn, itch, from the shame of it, and for all Misha's built himself up to be Mister Comeback—Mister Punchline, Mister Last Word, Mister "Come for me if you want to, call me whatever the fuck insults you've got stored up in there, it doesn't matter because I'm smarter than you and I can prove it"—Misha has no idea what to say.

Or if he should even say anything at all. Unfortunately, it's not like they write books about handling these kinds of situations with anything resembling grace and tact. He wonders if he should just get out and walk home—it's not like he doesn't do this walk almost every damn day anyway—but as he leans forward and tries to open the door, his head gets all swimmy and fuzzy. That spinning makes him flinch. Groan. Sends him reeling back into the seat. Okay, then. That's not happening.

Great. He gets to deal with the consequences of his actions now. The same way he keeps trying not to do in every other part of his life.

"I'm sorry," Misha manages to get out after a while, when it seems like Sarah's calmed down a little. At least, like she's calm enough for him to talk. And she tells him _it's fine_ , but… "No, it's not. I guess it doesn't make it better that I know I was being presumptuous. And angry—not to mention at the wrong person. And a total dick—but I was, and I know it, and… I'm sorry, Sarah. I shouldn't've said that."

"Yeah, well…" she says through a heavy sigh. "It's not like you really meant it, I guess. You just didn't know all the facts. And even if you did… Can't blame you too much for wanting to get some revenge or whatever. I mean, I was a _total_ bitch to you and being sorry doesn't make _that_ any better. Doesn't make any kind of difference."

"I came through it fine, in case you haven't noticed." _The part of my conscience that picks on my weight and calls me fat doesn't even sound like you anymore. It doesn't have to because it's so much more effective when it sounds like me._

"Yeah," Sarah deadpans, "because people who say they're okay after puking up their guts in the park are totally well-balanced. Training for a marathon or not."

Misha flushes pink and hugs himself tighter. "Well. Okay, when you put it _that_ way…" He sighs. Knocks his head back against the seat. "Where the fuck do we even get off having problems like this? You're pretty, rich, not exactly stupid or anything. Regardless of what people thought in school. And even if you were, people like you. I'm smart-ish, and pretty well-off—I mean, like, I'll have student loans hanging over my head to deal with eventually, but they won't be as bad as they could be—I guess you think I'm pretty, and my ex-boyfriend used to call me charismatic… We could have it _so_ much worse in terms of everything else, and here we are, anyway."

" _Ex_ -boyfriend?" Sarah says, blinking at Misha with no apparent clue what the fuck he's saying. And picking up on exactly the wrong thing, besides. "So he's totally blind and an over-demanding asshole, right? Or did you dump him because he wasn't good enough for you?"

"He did the dumping," Misha says, combs his fingers back through his sweat-drenched hair. "Because I wasn't good enough for him—don't know why I even bothered getting my hopes up that it could last. It's not like I ever deserved someone like him." That's not even remotely what Richard said, and for all he tries to clarify this statement, Misha can't bring himself to care— _he left; his opinion doesn't get to count anymore_. "He gave me some speech when he broke it off. Like how we both had problems and issues to get over, but it was bullshit—he's the one with the real problems. I just kind of suck."

"I wasn't good enough for my guy, either. Not like he helped by inventing problems that I didn't have. At the end of it all, he said he got sick of sharing me with my—"

"Eating disorder," they say in unison—and Misha's heart skips several beats. He can't even feel it doing its job when he forces himself to meet Sarah's eyes, and asks in a hushed voice if she's not-sick too, how long she's been that way. She just shrugs.

"A while," she says, the same way that she'd say anything about the weather. "I don't even know how long or when it started or any of that. My mom put me in kiddie pageants, and I remember loving them, thinking it was totally normal to obsess over diets because… that was what we did. That was what everybody did. And those turned into preteen miss pageants, and then teen pageants after that, and… I don't know. It wasn't right away, like I just woke up one morning with an eating disorder or whatever, but more like… I realized it suddenly."

Maybe it's none of his business—it's probably none of his business—but Misha still asks how she realized it. There's an itching in his palms like he has to hear this story _now_. Like he'll die if he doesn't hear it.

"Well, this one day, I made another girl cry because her swimsuit wasn't fitting right and she couldn't get her dress zipped up." Somehow, Misha's not entirely surprised that Sarah's realization involved making someone cry, and the sick thing is, he's not sure that he wouldn't have tried to make this girl cry, too— _she was competition, anyway, and if you want to win…_ "I mean, I knew it probably wasn't her fault, right?" Sarah says, chuckling ruefully. "Her brother'd just joined the Air Force or something, and her dad was away on business all the time. She was probably gearing up for a growth spurt, too. And we'd had ice cream together the night before, except I threw it up, and she was going on about how pretty I looked in my dress, and how she wished she could be that lucky because dieting is _hard_ , so I told her some crap about how I just had a really good metabolism, and really good genes, and we couldn't all be so lucky…"

Sarah pauses for a moment. Sighs again and starts twisting her hair around her fingers. "And I felt guilty, once she started bawling, but only because I realized it was going on eleven AM and I hadn't purged yet. So I tried and just remembered, like out of nowhere… I mean, I was on the bathroom floor, stabbing myself in the throat, and that's when I remembered I hadn't actually eaten anything. Not since the ice cream."

"Oh…" Misha doesn't know what to say to that, either, but somehow, stuff comes up. Words. Confessions that he never wanted to make. "I just don't eat—well. No. That's a lie—I _do_ eat, just not… I mean, I wish I had the willpower not to eat at all, but I'm not strong enough, so I have to… I've never made myself throw up. Not on purpose, anyway. Unless it counts that I pushed myself too hard tonight? But not on purpose—not to make myself sick or anything, I mean. I just work out. Usually. To make up for eating. Vicki says I do it too much but what the Hell does she know—but, anyway, I don't think it started because of you, or what you said or did, anyway—not that you helped because you _didn't_ , but… I sure felt pretty fucked up before you got there. Just. Nobody called me on it until Richard. Because it's not like there's any stigma about a big fat-ass deciding to lose weight, no matter how he does it."

"But you wondered about it before he called you out, didn't you," she asks without it being a question. On the other hand, it's more like she knows exactly what he's thinking and feeling, and she just doesn't want to have any elephants hanging around the car. Not like he can blame her. The car's small enough without making the air get thickened up and sticky with all kinds of unspoken things. "You wondered what it was about you that was so wrong that you couldn't feel right and why nobody noticed or even cared…"

"Yeah… And the worst moment was… You remember that mouth-breather in the A/V Club? Gary Syznowski?"

Sarah snickers, says that of course she remembers—how could she forget the guy who, with his pockmarked face and equine overbite and disturbing implication of all the things he could put in their drinks, asked Aly and Vicki for a homecoming threesome.

"Yeah, well," Misha says. "I learned all the disorder words at fat camp—because it totally makes sense to teach fatties about eating disorders, I mean. Okay, it _does_ , but I was just like, 'okay, maybe this one sounds weird and it's kinda close to home, but it doesn't apply to me. I'm fat, it can't apply to me,' and it's not like they can really convince anyone otherwise, not even with all the times they say shit about how anyone can get sick. But then at homecoming in senior year? That's when I had my moment. Because of fucking Syznowski… So I'm in the bathroom—"

"Trying to get the taste of What's-her-face—Amy with the glasses? Out of your mouth?"

"Not even a little. She was a lesbian anyway. We bearded for each other because I still thought I was a hundred percent gay."

Misha sighs. He should probably care that he's been out so late, that he doesn't even know what time it is or have his phone, so Mom and Dad, or Vicki, or Jensen, or somebody could be calling him—could've been worried and calling him this whole time—and he'd never even know the difference. Not until he got home, anyway. Misha should probably care that he's sitting in Sarah's car, with Sarah, telling her all sorts of shit that nobody else knows about him, not even Vicki. He should probably care that, unless Sarah shares his assumption, there's most likely some kind of expectation that this should clear out the air between them and let them be friends— _Fuck that, I mean… It's nothing personal, but fuck that. I can't be friends with someone who has so much in common with me, she'd know when I'm full of shit and I just can't even…_

But the only thing he notices is this warm, funny lightness in his chest, all tingly and what he's wanted to feel when he doesn't eat, but never manages to get. The sort of sensation that's like he just unloaded something heavy, and that's what keeps him talking: "Anyway, I was in the bathroom, about the smallest I'd ever been at that point, and all I was thinking was… how could they let me out of fat camp when I'd weighed one-seventy-five. I was, maybe, down to one-seventy that night, and it still felt like too much. Like, _way_ too much. Doctors were happy, my parents were happy, but not me. I wasn't happy. I was just staring in the mirror, thinking I looked huge. Some fat fuck in a tuxedo who didn't belong there—and I wondered if I shouldn't just try to make myself throw up, because it worked for people with _real_ eating disorders."

He can't look at Sarah anymore as he admits this—but even so, Misha only looks away from her only briefly before he has to look back—because she looked at him when she told her story, and because it feels so unreal to be saying this. Looking at her, at her expressions and the way he can't predict them, reminds him that this isn't just a dream. "And, anyway," he sighs, "I guess I lost track of time or something because next thing I know, Syznowski's clapping me on the back—which felt like getting roughed up in an alleyway, I guess he worked out or something, or maybe it was just how he stank like booze—and he's asking if getting scrawny turned me into a girl, too. And saying, _you look good, bro, all skinny and shit, no homo_. And I wanted to punch him, but only…"

Misha sighs. Licks at his lips and rubs them together. Thumps his head on the back of the seat again. "I wanted to punch him more than I've ever wanted to punch anybody—but I only wanted it so much because he'd called me skinny when I wasn't."

"You want to know something even more fucked up?" Sarah smirks like she's about to start laughing, and Misha guesses that yeah, sure, he does. "You were right," she says. "I really was trying to ruin your life in high school. I mean, I _hated_ you. I have to puke to be skinny, paint myself to look pretty, and drink to be any kind of fun—and I hated you for getting to be fat and prettier than me."

They probably shouldn't laugh at this.

No. Really. They _definitely_ shouldn't laugh at this—it's really not that fucking funny. It's about the furthest thing from funny that Misha's ever heard. Knowing that she really was trying to ruin his life—that he wasn't just imagining things or going crazy when he thought she had it out for him—and knowing that she did it because they were so godawful similar… Knowing that Sarah has so much in common with Misha and that's why they never got along…

About the only thing that Misha can do is laugh. Double over in the seat and laugh until he can't hear her laughter over his own. Laugh until it hurts—until his sides ache and he's got his head between his knees and he wishes he'd throw up again because that'd be a break from whatever this sick, broken feeling he's got is.

But, anyway, the only other option that makes sense is crying, and Misha's had quite enough of that in the past few months, thank the universe so very fucking much.

 

They're mostly quiet for the rest of the drive to Misha's place, but that's not saying much. They don't have too far left to go. And the only thing that Sarah has left to say is a warning for Misha not to get used to purging, whether or not he'd made himself throw up tonight—apparently, it's too much of a comfort, when one gets past the initial distaste for it and how gross it can be, and she's had too much difficulty refraining from it. It's nothing that she'd wish on anybody else.

Staring up at the house, he really, really doesn't want to have to go inside—have to sneak in or risk explaining himself to Mom and Dad… Where he's been (if they've even noticed), why he looks so pale and sick, why there's grass on his knees and dirt on his palm and the stink of vomit on his breath instead of the stink of booze like a fucking normal kid his age. Misha's tired, and his throat's still pissed off at him, and his stomach hasn't calmed down that much, and he really, really wants to hate Sarah right now—hate her for seeing him in such a moment of weakness, hate her for sounding so much like Richard, hate her for having the goddamn gall to apologize for high school like it fucking means anything.

But as he thanks her for the ride and slouches out onto the driveway, he sees her look kind of sad, and halfway through reassuring her that he's fine, _really he swears_ , he realizes that it's not quite sadness as much as recognition. Like she's looking in a mirror. And he tries to ignore the nagging itch of this realization, but it wallops him upside the head once he's upstairs and trying to drown himself in a skin-scalding shower. Mom and Dad didn't notice him sneaking back into the house. They didn't notice that he was gone.

And Misha wants to hate Sarah—he wants to keep thinking of her as the spoiled, snotty little bitch in sheep's clothing who made his life Hell in high school. He doesn't want to think about their past in light of this new information. He doesn't want look back on all the times she called him names—or made fun of his weight even once he started losing it (even in senior year, because him getting thin and salvaging the track team didn't mean she could let him forget that he'd been fat before), or told him that those jeans didn't make his ass look fat because his ass made the jeans look fat instead, or wondered (loudly, in public, surrounded by her gang of popular friends) why he even bothered dieting, since in the unlikely event that he managed to get skinny, he'd probably just end up being one of those unfortunate people who lost weight and found out they'd been ugly all along—and see some insecure, fucked up little girl who picked on him for being too much like herself.

And, really, he's kind of pissed off that she's the only person since Richard who's noticed anything. They're not even friends, much less prone to seeing each other's humanity. So why the Hell did Sarah spend all of forty-five fucking minutes with Misha and come out understanding him better than everybody else in his fucking fucked up life?

 

About two days after that bullshit incident, Misha's still thinking about Sarah, still thinking about what the Hell he's supposed to do with all of this shit that he never wanted to learn. He hasn't the slightest fucking idea. All he knows is that he can't just keep on with how he's been going. He's _not losing weight fast enough_ —oh, sure, the weight's still coming off, but he can't just expect that things will keep going so well. The weight won't stay off if he's just sick.

So Misha tries harder. He has to try harder. He chases after the same light feeling in his chest, the one that he got from talking with Sarah, but he can't find it. Not even when he manages to go without eating too terribly much—he keeps down one of the egg whites from his breakfast, the first day afterward, and some grilled asparagus well over twenty-four hours after that, but otherwise… Nothing. Nothing but water, coffee, tea, and protein shakes (made with water instead of milk, because they're filling either way and the extra calories aren't welcome).

Misha avoids food with more ferocity, for all he still brings lunches to work and has to work harder to fake out of dinners with the family. Buys himself a new Moleskine and starts keeping a log of what he eats (or more accurately, what he doesn't) and how long he works out, how many times and what he does. He scrawls down all the temptations that run afoul of him, makes notes of how hard it is to resist them— _The Daily Grind had crullers, sesame bagels (fuck my life, I know what's in those things so how can I still want them so much), and triple-chocolate muffins sitting out when I went to get my coffee; wanted them so much, so hungry and so nauseated, almost gave in…_

_Might need to stop talking to Shepp for a while. He talks about cake too much. I get it, that he's bored and his job sucks and baking gets him through it but it makes me want to claw my eyes out, to hear him rabbit on… Mom's making cookies again. Oatmeal raisin. Going out for a run, just hope the house doesn't stink when I get back… Vicki's trying to get me to go to lunch at Audrey's with her. Need to find excuses. Have to stay focused—don't even want to think about what could happen if I don't. I **know** what could happen if I don't. Wish I didn't, but I wouldn't need to do this if I hadn't gone and learned that in the first place._

And the worst part is that Misha scarcely even questions this, once he really hits his stride with it. Skipping meals has never been easier, and the hunger pangs don't feel so bad anymore. On the other hand, they're warm. Comforting. No more of the pins-and-needles bullshit—they still hurt, kind of, but not in a bad way. More than anything else, it just feels _good_. The sort of good that he'd get from running all day, as long as he stopped before making himself sick again—only different in that it's accessible whenever Misha wants it, as long as he keeps his intake limited (and he does—he keeps track of it, just to be sure that he's still on track). He'll get the pangs, he'll feel his stomach clawing at itself and at the rest of him, and then the waves of relief flood over him, sometimes even before he turns to chugging tea because, along with whatever these rushes of energy he gets are, it tricks his body into thinking that it isn't running on empty.

He doesn't even think about letting Heather have his lunch one day, when her babysitter had to cancel at the last minute and she gets stuck hanging around the Book Nook during her mother's shift. She's nine years old, sitting in one of the beanbag chairs that decorate the section of children's books, and on his way out to go for a run and get his coffee, Misha hands off the mess of calories and bad ideas that he had to put together. Peanut butter and jelly with the crusts still on. A ziploc bag of the cookies that Mom and Vicki made the other night—two peanut butter and three oatmeal raisin. A container of strawberries and raisins and baby carrots. Heather's a kid, and skinny, so she can afford to eat that shit; Misha can't fit any of it into his diet, save the carrots, and it's better that he share with her than throw everything out.

And he doesn't think about anything until she squints up at him, tilts her head, and asks, "But what're you gonna eat if I take it? Don't you want a cookie, at least?"

Misha swallows thickly and shakes his head. "I'm fine, sweetie," he says, without even lying. "There's more cookies at my house—" ( _Not that I'm going to eat them ever._ ) "And I'll just grab something to eat when I go out—I'm not all that hungry, anyway."

He licks his chapping lips, waits for her to nod and guess that that all makes sense, and it hits him on the way out the door that he's distressingly guilt-free about lying to a nine-year-old girl—a sweet, big-hearted nine-year-old girl who thinks of him as kind of a friend. _Well, it's not like I'm all that different from every other adult in the world_ , he supposes, heading off for the park. _I might even be better off than them. At least I'm just lying about myself and not about anything huge or important._


	8. Into a fog where no one notices.

"It's getting out of hand—he's been… I mean. _It's_ been getting out of hand for a while now. We have to put a stop to it before he's too far gone."

"Too far gone… You're saying that like he has no idea how to take care of himself. Have faith—he's a smart boy."

"Mom, I think you're… Look, I want to have faith in him, too, but I can't right now. I don't think he needs us to have faith in him right now, either—he needs us to _help him_."

Misha stops in the doorway, stares ahead at the corridor stretching ahead of him. He eases the door shut so quietly that deer wouldn't startle—and he crosses his fingers, hopes that his family doesn't hear. He's just coming in from his evening run, stuck in some Limbo between the relief flooding over his muscles and sharp pangs that accompany it, muddying up his entire head, to say nothing of how it was swimming earlier. He looked things up online—there's something or other going on with endorphins when Misha doesn't eat. Just like when he runs for too long, in which case it's a runner's high. Not exactly the same as hunger. But, either way, his body's flooded with Mother Nature's happy-meds, and Misha can't argue with that, not really.

He probably could, but he doesn't want to argue. He doesn't want to get rid of the endorphins. They can hang around forever, for all he cares.

And now there's these voices… They're coming from the kitchen, and even before he inches down the hallway toward them, Misha recognizes them. He doesn't have to try. Mom, Dad, and Vicki, all talking about—"We _are_ helping him, Darling," Mom says, matter-of-factly. The microwave goes off—she's probably heating up water for her own tea—and with the clink of a mug settling on the counter, she continues: "He wasn't doing well at the beginning of the summer, either. Encouraging him to get healthier… I don't see the problem in it."

_Just fucking great—they're talking about me._

" _Healthier_ , not… whatever he is right now," Vicki pipes up. Jesus fucking Christ, Misha could slug her right now, if she weren't his sister and if Mom hadn't raised him not to go around, punching girls. "I know you've seen what he's doing, too, Mom. It's not like it's exactly subtle. I mean, even if he ate reliably, what did he do this morning? Went for a run before work. And what's he off doing now? Going for a run—he hasn't been back since dinner and—"

"What Vicki's trying to say, Terri," says Dad, through a heavy sigh, "is that Misha's gone well past the point of healthy, here. I mean. He's lost the weight you wanted him to, hasn't he? And earned the help with the rent?"

"Not that you should've made that threat in the first place—"

" _Victoria_ , please—what we both want to say, Dear, is that… might it not be time to ease up on him, just a little bit—"

" _Dad_! Seriously, this isn't just something we can play nice about—"

"Oh, please and seriously, the both of you," Mom huffs—and Misha thinks that he could kiss her, if he could do it without admitting that he was eavesdropping. At least somebody understands. At least somebody knows that Misha has to keep going with this, that he can't stop yet because he's not thin enough yet. He just wants to rush into the kitchen and hug her and apologize for being such a shitty son over the years—maybe he'd even let himself break down in tears, like something straight out of some Oprah or Ellen special about feuding families learning to love each other again—he'd definitely beg for her forgiveness, go on about how badly he misinterpreted everything she ever said or did for him, how he took her for granted and never appreciated her enough, but he's learned better and oh, Mom, he's so sorry.

And she'd probably forgive him—because Misha's right in saying that she's not a monster, and of course, he'd be skinny enough to love by the time they got anywhere near television cameras. He'd be skinny enough that they could add ten pounds, or even twenty, and he'd still look enviably thin, effortlessly so, but the sort that inspires people, instead of making them get sick. And then he and Mom would embrace, and Dad and Vicki would come around because they'd realize, finally, that everything Mom ever did or said had been right all along. Group hug in the middle of the stage, to the sounds of _awwws_ and thunderous applause. Cue the heartwarming, redemptive violins. The music swells as, tearfully, Mom kisses Misha's cheek and says she's proud of him.

"You're acting like I'm stupid," Mom goes on, jerking Misha out of his comfortable fantasy, back into the world where his family probably belongs on Jerry Springer. "Yes, I mean it—both of you are acting like I'm an idiot here. Or like I'm willfully ignorant to what's happening around me, and I must say? I don't appreciate it in the slightest—of course I've noticed something's wrong with him. Or if not _wrong_ , then at least not _right_."

_The fuck—what…_ Misha stumbles to a dead halt and presses his back flat up against the wall, holds his breath as though either of these things will actually keep his family from realizing that he's there. After a moment, he has to splutter, gasp—the lung-twisting feeling, unfortunately, doesn't have the same relief to it that Misha gets from going hungry; it just hurts like his chest is on fire—and he rubs his fingers against the puke green wallpaper with its obnoxious, faux-vintage floral pattern. Clings to the wall until it becomes obvious that no one's heard him. No one's coming after him or going to drag Misha into the kitchen, make him sit down and _Talk_ about this.

They probably should notice him there, for all nobody does. Some lead-footed lummox trampling around in the corridor… How could they miss him? Even if they didn't have a silence settle into the room.

Everyone goes quiet, like Dad and Vicki don't have any idea what to say—or like Mom's doing her thing with the eyes, giving them one of her _Looks_ like she has something to say and no one else is getting a word in edgewise until she's done. Even without being there to see it, Misha knows that look. He can see it in the way she pads along the floor, her flip-flops tapping along the linoleum. He sees it in the way her chair drags and the way her mug clinks against the table. He sees it in the sheer exhaustion lurking underneath her sigh—and what's worse, he can perfectly imagine who Dad and Vicki have to look, right now.

He's probably standing off by the sink, has been for a while—his heavy footfalls move after Mom's and another chair slides around—so he'll be sitting next to Mom now, no doubt patting her shoulder in lieu of telling her that everything will be alright, once they get things sorted out, and figure out how to bring this up with Misha. Misha who is, once again, the problem. The fuck-up, the bad twin, the one who tries so hard but, no matter what he does, just can't get right. _Fuck's sake, Old Man, just tell her what you're thinking so I can know I'm right._

And Vicki… Jesus Christ, Vicki probably doesn't even have it in her to scowl. Oh, she wants to—she has to want to—but she's probably glaring at the floor and looking more piteous than pissed off. Misha knows this because he knows his sister, knows the slightest fluctuations in her voice. She's tried to have some fire in her words, but even without looking at her, even without the juxtaposition of what she says, how she says it, and her physical expressions, Misha knows her. Knows when her anger's all a front. She can't fool him on that count—and he can see her more clearly than either of their parents: slumped against the counter and hugging herself, the same way that Misha always does; tugging at her t-shirt's sleeves, wire-rimmed glasses sliding down her nose as she tries her best to look angry and comes up wide-eyed and pale. Comes up looking scared.

Because she still thinks that this is all Mom's fault—at least, she's offered Misha no evidence to the contrary since she got back from New York and, right off the bat, asked him how he handled several days without her or Dad acting as a buffer between Mom and Misha. Because Vicki's a goddamn genius—she has to be, if Misha is, because she's put him to shame since day one—but she wants for this problem to be simple. Logical. Easily resolved. All of the things it's not. If it's just Mom's fault, then the solution's self-evident: call Mom out, agree to make her stop (to let up on Misha, as though he really needs another person who wants to go too soft on him), or find some way to get between the two of them, so Misha doesn't have to listen to her ideas of how to help him.

But if Mom's on Vicki's side—if she agrees with what Dad and Vicki have to say, accepts the conclusion they've reached with all the evidence ( _they shouldn't have that at their disposal anyway, I have to be more careful, hide things better… stupid, amateurish mistakes like that could ruin fucking everything_ ), thinks that something has to be done about her son—then the problem isn't all her fault. Then Vicki loses the convenient villain in her story. Then Vicki doesn't have anyone she can blame and she'll have to reevaluate all her thoughts and plans, she'll have to find a new way to approach the issue, approach her brother, and that might take time, a considerable amount of it, considering the delicacy of the situation…

_God, I fucking hope so—_ Misha tries not to sigh too much at this thought, no matter how much relief it gives him _—I can't deal with her needing to bring all of this up right away now—I can't deal with this, period, and it's not fair, it's such a mess—_

"The whole presumption from the two of you is just… How could I not _notice_ ," Mom says, finally, yanking Misha back around when he'd really rather not deal with this crap. Not right now, or ever, if he could get out of it. "He's my _son_ , and I believe I'd know his tells better than either of you," she sighs as though this explains everything, and goes on as though she shouldn't need to say anything else on the subject, but will as long as it humors Dad and Vicki. "I've even gone and handled the apartment already… I spoke with Donna—Jensen's mother, that is—and we've already put in the deposit, paid up for the first few months—oh, Darling, don't worry. I've done the same for the place you're getting with your friends, too—"

"That expression," Vicki says, "was really more like… wondering if you've told Misha any of that? So maybe he could relax a little about this insane idea he has about what he needs to do? He's… Mom, he seriously thinks you'd make him work two jobs to pay his rent _and_ get absolutely flawless grades, besides."

"What do you mean—of course I wouldn't do that to him. He has to know that I wouldn't. I only said anything about the rent to give him a little shove… just the last bit of motivation that he needed…"

For the briefest moment, Misha recognizes this for what it is: his family expressing concern. Mom saying that she's looking out for him, that everything's going to be alright because she thinks he _is_ thin enough—and that, even if she hadn't thought so, she'd have taken care of him instead of leaving him out to dry. Or to fail out of school, the way he probably would have.

But that realization doesn't last.

They're conspiring against him—his entire family is… Even if it's not explicit, it might as well be. Misha can hear it in everything they've said… His eyes sting and his cheeks flush hot. His stomach turns. He's going to sick up, if he doesn't do something to clear his head— _Mom didn't think I could do it… She had doubts and I haven't hit the last target yet… She didn't have faith in me… Why couldn't I be good enough_ —with his breath clenching in his throat, Misha tears back out of the front door. Doesn't even remember to close it behind him. He can't stay here. He has to run. He needs to get the rush back.

 

Betrayal hurts—and that's what Misha's suffered, thanks to his eavesdropping. Not only was Mom supposed to be on his side, but she was supposed to _understand_. She was supposed to get, more than anybody, why Misha has to do this, why he can't stop. But it turns out she's just as bad for him as everybody else, and Misha barely acknowledges her during their next weigh-in session. Barely responds to her hugging him. Barely registers how she takes seeing that he's down to one-sixty-three, that his waist's almost back to thirty inches—she _should_ be happy for him, but it doesn't matter anymore.

The sad thing is, though? Misha wants it to matter—he wants to be allowed to give a fuck about what Mom thinks. But he can't. Not when she'll just try to hold him back—one-sixty _is_ too high for his weight to be at, and Misha can't let anybody stop him from getting there. Not Mom. Not Vicki. Not Jensen, or Shepp, or anybody. Richard could decide to come out of the woodwork right the fuck now, announce that it was all a misunderstanding and his father being a bastard, and he's back for real now, if Misha will take him—and Misha still wouldn't let the bastard dissuade him from this mission. Nothing's more important than getting his weight down to where it needs to be—and one-sixty isn't enough. He can't believe he ever thought it was.

It's surprisingly easy to break himself away from everybody, Misha finds. Dad is a creature of habit—Misha doesn't even have to try that hard to work around his schedule. Get up twenty minutes earlier, and Dad will still be in bed; stay out on the morning run an extra ten to fifteen minutes, and he'll have left for work already; Misha's only seeing him at dinner, soon enough, and that never lasts that long, even when Misha saves the majority of his daily calorie allotments for dinner. Mom is harder to shake—they're enmeshed in the whole business of keeping track of Misha's diet, so at the very least, they have to deal with each other—but at the same time, she seems to sense that something's wrong. That she's not calling the shots anymore. And she gives Misha space without him needing to ask that much or try that hard.

All he has to do is say that he needs room to be anxious, room to let himself worry about Edlund's class and moving in and how the semester's going to go, room to feel his feelings and let them be valid, the way that he's gotten told to do by everyone from his friends to his shrink, to fat camp counselors, to some toothpick of a nutritionist with his coke-bottle glasses and utter lack of a right to talk about _anything_ in Misha's life. All Misha has to do is bullshit about emotional honesty and Mom buys it. Backs off.

It's even easier to get Jensen and Shepp off Misha's trail. If they've been living in Hell for the whole summer, then the last few weeks of their respective internships invent a whole new level of torture for them. They don't have time for Skype dates (they haven't had time for any face-to-face chats since Misha still clocked in around one-ninety); they barely have time to call. Misha stops responding to texts that even tease at being about him. And considering the three of them can still talk about Jensen's problems or Shepp's problems or all the problems in the world that they can't fix, as long as Misha isn't one of them? Considering that everything's still mostly normal? Misha would say that he doesn't have to worry about those two. They're handled. They're safe and fine, the same way that Misha is completely fine.

Besides, even when Shepp bothers calling—bothers taking the time to set up a three-way call between himself, Jensen, and Misha; bothers taking the time to schedule this nonsense—it's not like Misha doesn't have other things to worry about. Other things like Vicki, for instance.

Other things like Vicki and her desire to get to the bottom of things, regardless of how Misha tells her that there aren't any layers or subtleties that she's missing here. It's like she's the world's worst Sherlock Holmes, not in terms of her damnably unimpeachable talent, but because she refuses to take _I'm fine_ for an answer, fuck the Hell off, and go appoint Danneel her Doctor Watson so they can have subtext-laden adventures far, far away from Misha and the problems that he doesn't have. Other things like how it's not unreasonable for Misha to just need a little privacy, but Vicki keeps showing up in her personal space anyway, prying where she has no right to pry.

It's not like he doesn't know that Vicki loves him. Despite anything he's thought or written down in anger, Misha would never _legitimately_ question that. Misha just doesn't get why she has to express it in such a broken, invasive way. She could try encouraging him more often. She could try doing it on his terms instead of on whatever ones she's working with. She could try _supporting_ him, or just doing anything aside from what she does, which is meddle, and stick her nose between the lines, and read into things in ways that could make Misha give up on eating anything for a week, maybe two, even if he really wanted food. Like somehow this would cast _Circle of Protection: Vicki_ and keep her at bay.

Impossible closeness isn't strange. It comes to them half-naturally, an idiosyncratic twin thing, a relic from when they used to be closer still, the days when they had to outgrow their shared language no one else could speak because their second grade teachers complained to the Vice-Principal, who complained to Mom and Dad. Apparently, it was bad enough that the morons couldn't tell the two of them apart, between Vicki's short haircut, Misha's ability to ape her voice, and their "confusing" refusal to play nicely with the behaviors and other expectations that their genders assigned to them.

Apparently, between their bond, Vicki's over-protectiveness of Misha, and Misha's habit of showing up to school in Vicki's clothes, the difficulty they gave their teachers _could indicate potential emotional problems_.

Misha still holds that the fault rests with their so-called educators—not least since, even by fraternal twin standards, he and Vicki have never looked especially similar, much less identical—but the way Vicki starts getting close to him strikes Misha as really, _really_ weird. Even for his sister, the aspiring sexuality historian genius who speaks fluent Klingon and Sindarin, among all sorts of other special talents.

Even for him, the aspiring, "I have no idea what I want out of my life, but I'd like to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with it sometime soon," who has, over the past few years, found it increasingly easy to just hide himself away under the veneer of some guy everyone seems to like better. Some guy who does whatever irrational and amusing and usually caustic thing he wants, makes people believe that he might as well be from another planet, and keeps people from getting close to Misha.

Not least because people actually like having that guy around—not that they're opposed to Misha himself. They just like that guy better. Which is close enough for government work and Misha's comfort. It's better to have the upper hand, anyway. Keep them all from getting close enough to maybe hurt him. Not even close in the way that Vicki, Jensen, and Shepp are close to him—any kind of closeness could strangle him.

The closeness that Vicki starts trying to actualize is weird, even for them, though. Even considering all the times when Misha swears he's fine and Vicki just nods, but they have an unspoken understanding that, under eye microscopic glare, he's about as opaque as plastic wrap, and that he's only remotely getting away with shit because she knows when pushing him could, instead of making him open up, have the opposite effect. Or maybe because he has the same degree of insight into all of her wormy little neuroses and could go and out something she doesn't want outed.

He knows he's imagining things—exaggerating them out of frustration and a desire for her to lay off of him already—convincing himself that she's glaring at him, or that she's snapping and nosing around when, really, she's probably just being a normal sister. A concerned sister. A _good_ sister. A sister who doesn't suck or let her brother do anything she thinks might hurt him—but even trying to give Vicki the benefit of the doubt doesn't help him much.

Mostly, it just makes Misha feel worse. Like Vicki deserves so much better in a brother, and like he's fucked for holding her back, the way he is. Why shouldn't he feel that way? The jury might be out on which one of them is right, but if Vicki _is_ trying to help him—if, maybe (just maybe), she's the one who's in the right—then he's probably the worst person in the world. Is there really any other way to describe the guy who actively works to spite his sister's attempts to help him? Maybe, but Misha doesn't know any, offhand. They probably only exist in languages he doesn't know.

All he knows is that this time, when he fasts for thirty-six hours, it doesn't feel like regaining control. It feels more like punishing himself, and when he finally has to break that stretch—when he gives in and sneaks some chicken soup because his head's swimming too much for him to do anything—Misha hates himself for that. _You don't deserve to eat, jackass,_ he tells himself. _Anyone who'd treat a sister like Vicki the way you do doesn't deserve anything good._

 

"I can't go with you," Misha tells her, one day when he's not even supposed to be at work in the first place, much less attempting to skip a lunch break. He deliberately pays attention to the bookshelf in front of him, focusing more than he needs to on taking a bunch of paperback erotica anthologies out of the _Self-Help_ section's ranks and setting them on his cart.

Refusing to look at his sister, because if he does, then Vicki might think she has a leg to stand on when she's pondering all the accusations she could make. "What—Michelle had to take Heather to some emergency doctor's appointment—I volunteered to cover her shift so Jules and Amanda didn't have to go short-handed."

"And the reason they're off in the break room and you're here?" Even Vicki's scoff and her tone of voice has a suspiciously arched eyebrow to it.

Misha shrugs. "I took my break earlier—I mean, I missed breakfast to get here on time. I was _starving_." (Possibly a loaded choice of words, he realizes, but this makes the perfect deception. He admits to one apparent instance of misbehavior and contextualizes it in a way that probably makes sense. He uses it to explain away another instance of self-abuse, manages to make Vicki look all presumptuous and negative—not necessarily the bad guy, but at least he impugns her integrity a little.)

Finally, Misha turns to face her and it's just in time to catch her making A Face at him—not just a face, but _A Face_ , for which he's vaguely tempted to bash his forehead into the nearest wall. Vicki blinks at him and, without saying it, Misha knows she recognizes the loaded word-choice, too. For a moment, he expects that she's going to give him one of her trademark suspicious eyebrows, or at least look him up and down like she's got X-ray vision—but instead, she furrows her brow, wrinkles her nose. Frowns at him with something that looks like… pity. There's a hint of something sad in the glint her eyes get, and something that might be concern, and _pity_.

Misha's entire mouth goes dry, sours like he just bit into a lemon, and as his heart starts pounding, he gets the compulsion to just run somewhere and make himself throw up—not that he's eaten enough to merit it, but it might be better than the hot, sick, heavy feeling that worms around his whole body, centered in his stomach, all from trying to look Vicki in the eye. It'd probably be better than the shock up his spine as he realizes that he wants to punch something—like, really, _really_ wants to punch something—not Vicki, because hitting his sister's out of the question, but anything that'd let him get rid of whatever the fuck this _goddammit, goddamn everything, what is fucking with you Vicki, I don't need your pity, go find a homeless kitten to give that Face to because I don't fucking need it_ feeling is.

And puking what he hasn't eaten would definitely be better than listening to her whisper, "Okay, then. I'll see you at home for dinner?"

Misha shrugs, and nods, and says, "Or for the drive home, right?" Maybe he prefers to walk to work and back, these days, but he does feel kind of tired, and Vicki could probably use some peace of mind. Especially if she's making that Face, because Misha's probably imagining it and that just makes everything worse.

 

The next day, she comes back around noon and corners him in the stacks of poetry and fiction anthologies, with Michelle in tow. _Since when are you even friends with my coworkers?_ For all he wonders that, he tries to keep a smile up, tries not to complain about how no, really, those asshole kids have messed up the shelves again and he needs to fix them so people can actually find the books they want—because that's part of his job, but so is trying to make sure his sister and his friends don't go crazy worrying about him for no good reason.

After a stunning lack of protest on his part—like, seriously, he's appalled with himself for how little he actually tries to make himself fight back, even before Mister Murphy shows up to say that his story about having gone to lunch already's bogus—Misha ends up sitting next to Michelle and opposite Vicki in a booth at Eden Wok. He slumps against the barrier between their booth and the next one, trying to fake like he's paying attention to the conversation and probably doing a shit job of it. Just like he does a shit job of everything, these days. Not that he isn't interested in… whatever Michelle and Vicki are saying about whatever's going on in their heads.

(Something or other about figure skating and the upcoming winter Olympics comes through, though Misha can't make sense of it. He has no idea what a Johnny Weir is, aside from, "some apparently adorable figure skater who does a Lady Gaga exhibition routine or something," but he bets the guy's got an enviably good figure. Ice dancers have to be slender like that. And they probably have coaches and trainers and teams of nutritionists who hound them about keeping on their diets instead of harassing them for being on one in the first place—lucky bastards. Misha kind of hates them on principle, because hate is easier than envy.)

It's just that Misha knows he's only wound up here for two reasons. First and foremost, because he fails at dieting—because he's either fucking up and worrying people when they shouldn't be concerned, or because he needs extra motivation (and maybe Vicki finally understands this, so she's getting in-character to help him). Secondly, because some incomprehensible Vicki Reason has made her decide that glat kosher Chinese food is any kind of better than the regular Chinese food at Kim's. He doesn't even pretend to have any idea how that works out, since he's sure that there are only slight improvements—no MSG, and chicken in the egg rolls instead of pork, for instance—and the food's laden down with calories anyway. Not to mention other bad shit.

"Are you sure you're feeling alright, Sweetie?" Michelle says in the same hushed voice you'd use at a funeral home, once the food's shown up and while Misha tries to lose himself in pushing his chicken-and-snow-peas around the plate. Tries to lose the sudden onslaught of thoughts about how good the food might taste. He shrugs and offers up a noncommittal huff, which just makes her carry on: "I'm just asking since… you don't _look_ that alright, and you're hardly eating anything—I mean, we even got your favorite appetizer, didn't we? And you barely touched it."

_That's because the peanut butter sauce can't even begin to compensate for all the carbs and concentrated essence of disgusting that are in the cold noodles,_ Misha thinks, despite how he only says, "It just smelled funny—the edamame was fine, though. So I had that. And it _was_ fine." _Except for how salty it was—I'm gonna be retaining water like nobody's business for a week now, and it'll probably turn to fat before I can even do anything about it._

Misha doesn't even know how or why he thinks this is vaguely logical—in the back of his mind, he knows it's rather the opposite. Completely illogical and nonsensical and stupid and awful and _wrong_. His phone starts feeling heavy in his pocket, grinding up against his thigh right as he thinks again that maybe, he should call somebody. Maybe he can't talk to Vicki or Michelle—even if they're not _really_ trying to help him with his diet by getting into character and giving him the method acting version of support, they still have the potential to fuck things up too much in too immediate a context; they could make him order dessert or pull out something unimaginably worse—but… Shepp and Jensen might be on their lunch breaks now, too, and if Misha's seriously thinking things he knows are bullshit… Maybe he _needs_ to talk to somebody.

Except he shifts around in his seat, which makes his legs rub together—except that he remembers how he's only gotten his thigh-gap back recently, how it's not nearly big enough yet, how his flabby ass is even more disgusting than the concentrated crap in his food—and even though he manages to (mostly) repress the angry flush his cheeks get, Misha only allows himself enough food to keep Vicki and Michelle content. Even when his stomach and his brain protest that _Jesus Christ, aren't you enough of a failure already without eating this crap—_

Even when the few bites of a meal he knows isn't all that bad—it's just breading-free chicken with vegetables and a nigh on negligible amount of light sauce—sets his heart racing and his chest deciding that it wants to constrict around him like a fucking snake, and makes the protests change to self-abuse— _you're enjoying all of this aren't you, you fat fuck—you might as well just give up on trying to get skinny again, as though you ever really were, it's never going to work if you keep up like this, and you **know** you can't control yourself… It wouldn't be so bad if you were brave enough to purge, but you're still hung up on how you promised that bitch Sarah that you wouldn't_.

The rest, he boxes up and tosses in the break room fridge without writing his name on it, in the hopes that Jules or Amanda or maybe Rob might decide that the food belongs to them, since it's not labeled as anyone else's. Any other day, he might complain about their lack of boundaries, or their presumption—but when it's working to his advantage, Misha doesn't see the point in whining. Especially not when everything else about this situation might as well be some kind of death sentence.

The only other positive side to all of this is that work keeps Misha on his feet for the rest of the day, and that he manages to squeeze in runs both before and after dinner. It's not as good as restricting would've been, and it doesn't shake the feeling that, no, really—promising Sarah anything doesn't even count. He shouldn't hold himself to that because she purges too, so she's a bigger hypocrite than he is, and what the Hell does he owe her anyway, with the history that they've got. Nothing, that's what he owes her. _Nothing_.

Sleeping doesn't shake those feelings either, but at least Misha gets to tune them out for a few hours. Nightmares about therapy aren't much better, granted, but they can't hurt him. Not in the same way that his traitorous, failure's thoughts could hurt him.

 

Naturally, Vicki keeps after him. She can't just accept this sort of display, with the blatant faking instead of eating. She can't take any sort of threat to her perception of the world—which Misha can't criticize her for, considering he does the same thing—and she can't handle getting no answer when she wants something more substantial. And despite the protests from his conscience, its screaming about how he needs to be more vigilant, Misha thinks nothing of her perseverance. After all, she's his sister. His _twin_ sister.

Even if the genetic bond, shared womb, and how they've literally known each other longer than anyone else ever can didn't count for anything, they're stubborn people. She's so terribly misguided that it hurts—or maybe she's still method-helping him—or maybe she can't decide what to do, so it's not that Misha can't settle on how to interpret her actions, but that her actions keep changing on him so they _have_ to get read differently—but regardless of the specifics, she's going to persist in whatever course of action she sets her sights on. And she's going to try to see her plans through to the end.

She's going to attempt taking care of Misha in her own way, because that's just how both of them work. Like there's some genetic sequence that codes for this rubric of personality traits. All Misha can do to get through this is carry on along his own path, without letting her dissuade him, and so he does: he specifically rearranges his lunch breaks so she can't find him at the Nook and drag him out again. He mostly spends his lunch breaks away from the shop, walking if his head's too muddled for a proper jog. He covers shifts when he knows she isn't working, so he can get some goddamn privacy, and he fakes through dinner at home and bringing lunch into work with him.

For all he doesn't want to give up too many things, he eats around Vicki—never enough to throw off his diet, and never anything that's bad for him, but he _does_ eat. Just enough to (maybe) trick her into thinking that she's just been imagining the extent of his restrictive behavior. The urge to make himself sick gets stronger as the summer winds down, but he never gives in; he just compensates for the calories by keeping up on his working out. He gets up earlier so he can come in from his runs earlier, so she won't know how long he's really been out, and when he thinks that he's not getting enough exercise in, he tacks an additional run before dinner onto his everyday routine.

And it works. Or seems to work, anyway. Even when one Sunday that they have off finds Misha stumbling into the kitchen after one of his longer runs, after he-doesn't-know-how-long-exactly-but-it's-probably-been-a-few-hours-at-least-he-didn't-throw-up-in-a-bush-this-time, and even when he turns down Vicki's offer of a Gatorade in favor of just chugging water—she points out that he could end up with an electrolyte imbalance, whatever that means in a practical sense, but Misha insists that it's fine. Really. He's not in the mood for Gatorade, not when it'll probably make him sick (which has nothing to do with anything at all, it's just some random nausea).

Never mind that he nearly upchucks anyway, once he's locked the bathroom door behind him. Never mind that, as he forces himself through a shower, his head's muddier than usual and he feels unsteady on his feet. Never mind anything because none of it's important—the only thing that matters is that Vicki's none the wiser to what's going on, and that she can't jump in and try to stop Misha if she doesn't know anything.

 

It's probably fucking sick that Misha lets himself believe this—not even _probably_ , though, because Misha doesn't know any other words for this fuck up on his part. It's _definitely_ fucking sick. Nothing else in his life ever goes right, so why would he expect any different from this mess of shit? He's got no idea, but come Tuesday afternoon, Misha finds himself emulating Bambi in the headlights. Trying not to look at Vicki's face, at the expression she has that seems like a self-satisfied, smug smirk. Blinking up at Mister Murphy as he says that Vicki came to him, worried sick about how she never sees her brother anymore, so go on, son—take your lunch break early and spend it with your sister.

_Jesus Christ, you are the biggest, most gullible fucking son of a bitch I have ever met in my life—can't you tell when she's fucking around with you? Probably not, since you thought I looked good as a big fat-ass, but since you sign my paychecks and I have to pretend to respect you, just… are you fucking **serious**?_ (Misha wishes that he were brave enough to say any of this aloud, instead of being a chicken-shit coward, but he's still stuck nodding without saying anything, getting shoved out the door with Vicki before he can even think of what he'd say.)

They end up at Audrey's, sitting in Sarah's section, because the universe hates Misha and has decided that it's not bad enough he has to deal with this crap, but he really has to do it while fighting off the urge to make Faces at the waitress. Because she knows enough about him to appreciate how much he hates having to order a bacon cheeseburger (with a side of fries, instead of melon like Misha tries to ask for) because Vicki insists that she knows he skipped breakfast, so he needs to eat something substantial. Which means _not a salad_ —"Especially since you probably won't bother getting one of the ones that have more than just lettuce and tomato on them."

_Maybe I wouldn't **have** to bother avoiding those abominations—seriously, they're not even salads anymore, Vicki, don't fucking patronize to me by pretending they are—but maybe I wouldn't **need** to stay away from them if you'd just **let me keep to my diet** so I can get **skinny** —and properly so, not thin-but-borderline the way I was last fall._

It's not even a comfort that Sarah nods when Misha puts his order in—nods in a way that says she's been here before, with somebody making her eat and she wishes that Misha didn't have to deal with it. At least, Misha guesses that the hint of gloom in her eyes is some kind of sympathy. It could, he supposes, be something else but he doesn't want to consider that—and it still doesn't help him any. Not really. It's not like he gets out of having to stomach the cheeseburger. Trying to cut it up so he can nudge it around his plate doesn't work—Vicki just arches her eyebrow at him and points out that they only have so long for lunch, it's not like Misha can just dawdle and expect it to work—and when he stops after less than half of it, she reminds him that _he skipped breakfast_.

"You're just going to make yourself feel worse if you don't at least _try_ to eat something," she says, taking in a forkful of her lemon chicken. He watches her slip it between her lips and wonders why he couldn't order that, why did he need to order some fucking dead cow with its giant heap of calories. "I'm wondering if that's not why you've been sick so often—you know you can generally stop dieting when you hit your goal weight, right."

"Yeah, because I'm really going to backslide all over again," Misha huffs before he can even think about what he's saying. Thinking about his words and thinking about what he's eating? At the same time? God, Misha can't even fathom how he's supposed to do that, not when he knows what will happen if he _doesn't_ devote as much of his mind as possible to the more important issue here. He'll lose track of what he's eating, he won't be able to write it down later, his entire routine will get thrown off and this slip up could cost him all of his hard work and progress.

In response to the suspicious arch of Vicki's eyebrows, he sighs. Tries to cover his ass: "I just meant to say… I don't even know if I've gotten there yet—don't… Vicki, don't make that face at me. I seriously _don't know_ —"

(It's not even a lie, for all it tastes like one in his mouth and for all Vicki still looks skeptical. But Mom hasn't insisted on checking Misha's weight since he clocked in at one-sixty-three, begged out of talking to her by saying that he felt sick, and spent the rest of the day in bed. And Misha's still waiting for her to pick things up again—he's thought about just doing it himself, but on the other hand, he's pretty sure he'll want to weigh himself every day, if he starts up, and about the only good thing to come out of _feel your feelings_ fat camp, aside from losing weight in the first place, is that Misha knows weighing himself every day is fucking stupid for reasons like water retention and numbers that could fluctuate too much to really put stock in.)

Shrugging, he tries to wrap up and keep Vicki from pursuing this ridiculous crusade she's on: "Look, I don't care what you think about Mom, but she really hasn't been that bad about all of this—I swear, she hasn't. She's even stopped with the weighing thing, and I haven't looked into it myself… I don't see the point, you know? It's, like. It's not about the numbers, right? It's about a more… generally healthy feeling? And self-improvement like that?"

She nods and supposes that makes some kind of sense, but in a drawling tone that screams _bullshit, you lying fuck_. When Sarah comes around again to refill Misha's coffee, Vicki doesn't hesitate in ordering one of the king-size brownie sundaes with two spoons. Or, once it shows up, in keeping her eyes on Misha, making sure that he gets more than a few bites down.

For his own part, he tries to smile, pretend that he's enjoying this, that he's grateful for her reminding him that he really does love chocolate things, and God, he's fucking missed them this summer—and on some sick level, that's not a lie, either. For all Misha's conscience yells at him, reminds him that he's weak and slipping up and how can he even try to defend Vicki when all she wants is to sabotage him, and for all he tries to resist, the brownie sundae tastes good. The warm, moist brownie with the swirl of fudge inside the cake part, and the vanilla ice cream, all slightly melted and cool, and the whipped cream—but he feels like he's dying, past the facade. He's pretty sure that his smile's standing on rickety legs. That it could fall at any moment.

It's a miracle that he makes it to work without clueing Vicki into anything, and it's more of one that Misha has enough time left to duck into the employee restroom. The click of the lock snaps like a gunshot. And once it's gone, all Misha hears is his own heartbeat, pounding from his chest up to his ears—he barely feels anything, either, just the faint hint of the door behind his back. And his heart stirring up a ruckus. And his lungs crushing in on themselves—or something crushing them in—he doesn't know, can't tell, has no idea what to even begin to think—as though he _could_ think when everything in his head is just an infinite loop of _no no no bad don't keep it in we can't keep it in no bad no no fuck why would she do that to us I can't no why—_

Misha doesn't realize what he's doing until he's gagging on his own fingers. Even through his jeans, the tile floor hits his knees and makes him shiver. Shudder. Like a death rattle, and he wishes that it fucking was. He thinks about how easy this whole puking thing seemed when he stumbled into it by accident—when he pushed himself too hard and upchucked in the park, when he quite literally gagged on Richard's cock—and stabbing himself in the throat is just… It shouldn't be harder, but it is. Finally, though, Misha manages to find the right spot. There's a lurch and everything comes back up. A heap of bile and sludge, most of which still looks like food— _thank fucking God, maybe I didn't start getting stuck with all those calories, please please please…_

This process repeats itself. He barely even has to do anything, save push through the sting of tears. Even then, though… They're not _normal_ tears. He notices his eyes hurting, and he notices that his cheeks are wet, but crying doesn't take any effort on his part. Like it's just an automatic reaction. All he has to do is blink, cough a little as another round of puke charges up his throat, and they're gone. Everything's gone. Everything bad is, anyway.

All in all, once he gets started? Misha finds this easier than he expected. His nerves stop burning and twisting around with the sensation of _fuck fuck fuck get it out get it out get it out_ ; his whole chest opens up and he can breathe again; his head stops spinning, even, and for the first time in months—in longer than he cares to recall—Misha feels… _good_. Legitimately good. Not just a runner's high or the satisfaction of not eating or anything else. He can see why they call it purging—the airy feeling that settles in and warms up his entire body isn't just an absence of feeling awful; it's a high like Misha's never felt bad in his life. Blissful. Unaware of the idea that he ever could feel as low as he (logically, rationally) knows that he has. Feel as desperate and panicked as he just did.

Once he's sure there's no more to get up, Misha blinks down at the product of his efforts, all black and brown and yellow and God, just looking at it makes him wish that he had something more to throw up, just to stave off the desire he gets to puke again. He rinses out his mouth with the Scope that Mister Murphy keeps around—out of some misbegotten idea that his employees might need it before getting nookie on the break room sofa with their myriad significant others—and floats through the rest of the day. Almost considers staying in from both his runs, just to keep Vicki oblivious. (Naturally, he can't give up that much, but he does skip the first and only goes out after dinner.)

Sure, he promised not to go this way, but his conscience has a point. Misha doesn't owe Sarah anything. Besides, what nobody else knows can't hurt him—and he can use this trick. It's effective.

 

He does use it, too. Going out to lunch with Vicki makes her happy, keeps her from worrying. Sharing lunch at work with Michelle is so nice, so easy when Misha knows that he doesn't have to keep the shit around—he can't help wondering why he never bothered trying this out, earlier. ( _Because everybody else would think it's sick and you care too much about what they think, even when you know they're in the wrong,_ his conscience reminds him as he tries to gossip with Michelle and eat his peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat like nothing's wrong in the world.

Much as Misha wishes he could, he can't deny: that explanation makes more than a small degree of sense; he's always cared too much when he has no reason to do so. At least he can fix this.)

He tries not to purge too often, but to be fair? Even with this new trick in his life, he tries not to allow himself too much food, outside of lunch—lunch is so regrettably social, and he can't keep lying to people about why he doesn't eat, not when they're suspicious… Misha can restrict at other meals, or just outright skip them, or replace them with a protein shake to keep up the illusion that all of this is about his health and nothing else, and he can still work out in the morning and the evening. He usually doesn't eat enough to need to purge. Which works out just as well for him. He doesn't want to get too used to this. His gag reflex might stop being so sensitive, and he can't have that happening.

But no one knows what he's doing. And maybe it makes him a little bit cocky—or maybe his closest call is just a massive slip-up—but he makes the mistake of weighing himself that morning. He wanders out of his morning post-run shower and can't believe his reflection. Where it usually looks all pudgy and disgusting (like it should strain his clothes more than it ever feels like it's doing), Misha sees himself looking sort of thin. Not skinny, not the way he needs to be… but slender. Lean might be a better word. He doesn't have Mom's tape-measure, so he can't verify it, but he _does_ have the scale… Except that when he climbs on it, the numbers flash back at him: _158_.

He hasn't gained—thank fucking _God_ , he hasn't gained—but it's not enough of a loss. Not even remotely. He's been doing so much better up until this point, losing weight faster… and Misha can't keep on like this—he knows that he can't. So he skips breakfast, even though he didn't eat it or dinner yesterday. For the first time since he's found the purge, he skips lunch and claims he's just not feeling up to food right now—even though he stays on his feet and works through it because Jules is having issues with her allergies and came to work anyway, and she needs the extra break time more than he does.

It's not a lie, at least, not entirely. Misha really doesn't feel so well… He's just not _nauseated_. His legs are wobbly. Lights glare in his eyes like all of them are tiny little suns, trying to burn out his eyes—which he knows is stupid, because they're probably not any brighter than normal—and he's got hunger gnawing at his insides all over again. Just without the rush that he's come to associate with the sensation. Without any of the pride or the feeling of success or anything else that he's come to relish, chase after. His stomach twists around and ties itself up and tries to eat him from the inside out—and his head is swimming but he can't enjoy it.

To keep Michelle happy, he stomachs his snack-sized Ziploc bag of baby carrots, and feels a hot, sick lurch rush through his entire body—and he hasn't had the things in him five minutes before he's in the employee restroom again, down on his knees again, and gagging on his hand _again_. He gets the carrots up, plus bile and sludge and some pieces of something that he doesn't even want to try identifying, and that still doesn't make him feel any better. He keeps reaching down his throat and stabbing himself over and over, keeps making himself retch and heave—at least, he _tries_ to retch, even when nothing comes up at all—even when all this does is make his entire body convulse and ache.

And he gets so lost in this, in eventually giving up (because fuck, he can't stay here while he's covering a shift) and wiping off his fingers in some toilet paper that he doesn't hear the door open. Doesn't notice that he's not alone until he hears a tiny voice whisper, "…Misha?"

_Heather_ —even before he stares up at her, he knows it's Heather, and that thought makes him feel like there's a lead brick beating against the inside of his stomach, trying to tear a hole in it or God only knows what else. It doesn't let up when he tells her that he got sick—deliberately avoiding the part where he did this to himself. It doesn't let up when Heather believes him, and it doesn't let up when he follows her out, tries to get back to work, and ends up shoved into the break room. It doesn't let up when Michelle and Mister Murphy believe his lie (and don't question what Misha considers a glaring omission), but tell him to rest up.

It doesn't even let up after his nap—if anything, it just gets worse. Misha sets an alarm on his phone, sets it up to blare his custom ringtone, but he doesn't hear "Girl All The Bad Guys Want" when he wakes up. About the only things he hears are his breathing and someone else's—and, groaning (from the exertion and the light), Misha blinks around, stares up at Vicki for a long moment before it sinks in that she's here, that she's probably why there's a hand on his shoulder. With a heavy sigh, he buries his face in the decrepit, stinking pillow and mumbles that she should go back to her own workplace before she gets in trouble. She just shakes her head and cards her fingers through his hair.

"Misha… It's closing time, honey. I just closed up at my own shift… Come on, Mom's got dinner waiting for us at home."

Vaguely, Misha appreciates that Vicki cares—in a more concrete way, he appreciates the feeling of her fingers in his hair and lazily tilts his head around to give her a better angle to work from—but regardless: when they get home, he puts on the most piteous facial expressions that he can manage, whines about how he still doesn't feel so well, and slouches up to bed without so much as entering the kitchen.


	9. And the kick is so divine.

The next few days following this "almost getting caught at work" bullshit—the few days leading up to Misha's scheduled Skype date with Shepp and Jensen—are radio silence. All a bunch of repeated routines and nothing of interest until Misha decides that he ought to weigh himself again. When he clocks in at one-fifty-five, he's not _disappointed_ , not as such. He just has to suck it up and turn his frustration into making himself do better. Work harder. Get thinner. He fasts all day and pushes himself like the whips of Hell are behind him, worming away from lunch at the Nook for an extra jog, taking another after work, and only wasting a few minutes to clean up the dishes after dinner before he heads out again.

It's not that he doesn't appreciate the progress that he's made—Misha absolutely appreciates it, and he appreciates that most people couldn't manage this as well as he has, and he appreciates how hard it's been better than anybody else could—but Misha has five pounds left to get rid of before he can head back to campus, to his and Jensen's new place. And the last five pounds are always the hardest. He harbors no delusions about the amount of work that he still has left to do, hence why he has to attack the problem like a staving would.

And that plan's all working fine until, once again, Vicki just has to stick her nose into things. Again. Just when he thought she might've gotten over her insistence on how _not okay_ his habits are. It's like she's being purposefully dense with him, sometimes—and it makes him want to scream at her. Demand to know if she has any idea what she's talking about—any _real_ idea, one that's not based on her delusional belief in how fucked up he is—and the worst part is that he already knows she doesn't.

If she _did_ know jack about squat, then she'd know that the really _not okay_ thing was how fat he let himself get, how out-of-control and how off-the-rails. And it's just not _fair_ that Misha has to suffer through people lying to him, telling him that he looked fine, that he was fine, but that his choices _now_ aren't fine just because they're not all sorts of nonsense about self-acceptance.

It's worse from Vicki than from anybody else because, as his sister, she ought to know better than to go meddling in Misha's life and trying to make his decisions for him. Vicki has no fucking right—it's not her body, or her life, or her call about any of this—but still, he stumbles in from his after dinner run and finds Vicki waiting for him in the kitchen. She doesn't stand between him and his glass of water, but she does sit him down at the table. Doesn't tell him what the Hell she's playing at, just that he needs to sit tight and let her work her magic. Which, at least for now, seems to take the form of a slice of cake. A generous slice, at that, and not just of any fucking cake.

No, because Vicki doesn't half-ass anything—sabotaging him and his efforts means that she has to come after him with the triple-layer dark chocolate abomination that she made last night, with the chocolate chips on top and the frosting that Mom made from scratch and one of Grandma Krushnic's recipes. Misha has no idea how bad this is for his diet, aside from, "very." It's full of calories, fat, carbs (and none of them, Misha's willing to bet, are dietary fiber or any kind of good carbs—no, they're all going to be sugar), and Vicki just makes it worse with the dollop of homemade whipped cream that she scoops onto it. Misha tries to glare up at her, to protest just a little bit—and it goes nowhere. All she does is shrug, then inform him that she and their parents agree on this.

"All we need you to do is eat the cake," she says. "It's not going to kill you. It's just cake."

Yeah, like Misha can't see through that to what she really wants to say: _Mom and Dad and I think that you're in trouble, because obviously, our opinions on your weight and behavior regarding food matter infinitely more than yours do, and it's not that we don't trust you to look after yourself—it's just that we really, really don't trust you to do anything at all, especially not in the one place where you want the control most. Because we don't really understand what's going on for you, but we're going to act like we do. We're your family. That's our job._

So he's stuck here. So his options are limited. So his sister is the biggest Benedict Arnold Misha's ever met in his life. So he pretty much has to eat this goddamn cake or else his entire family's going to turn against him and drag his ass to therapy or worse. Never mind that he's running out of time, and never mind how he can't go back to school weighing more than one-fifty—more immediately, never mind that he only has half an hour to get cleaned up and get on Skype or Shepp and Jensen will kill him (or else assume that he's gone and gotten himself killed somehow, and subsequently start flipping out)—never mind that he's been doing _so well_ …

Misha sighs and takes up the fork. Tries his best not to think about the calories or the sugar or any of this. Tries to just eat automatically and as quickly as possible, because if he stops to think, then it might get even more real—his whole brain's screaming at him to stop, making his body follow suit long before his stomach starts yelling about how much he's eating, how big this fucking cake is, how _it fucking hurts_ —and once the plate's clean, Misha doesn't hang around to get a fix on Vicki's reaction or to try and read her. He barrels out of the kitchen. Up the stairs. He fumbles through a shower faster than he ever has. He hardly pauses to get the shampoo out of his eyes, much less do anything that might actually hold him up—he leaves the shower running when he's finished and dashes out of it, into a towel, then his t-shirt and boxers—

And Misha's still damp as his knees hit the floor, as the butt of his toothbrush and two fingers hit the back his throat. Thank God for his anxiety—he's still got a sensitive gag reflex, but his stomach's habit of tying itself up in knots makes it that much easier for Misha to spill his guts and gag up the _stupid fucking cake_. Already, it's been in him too long—Christ, he feels it trying to settle onto his body; he feels the pounds and the fat trying to creep back onto his frame and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—he's worked too hard for everything to blow up in his face now, for all of his efforts to be for naught because he'll just get fat _again_.

Maybe he goes on a while too long—he keeps going until the cake's up, along with some lumps of other stuff that he doesn't want to identify, and all he can get up is coughing and a few hits of stomach acid. He keeps going until it hurts, until his throat burns and his stomach's trying to cave in or something, like it's been kicked too many times, and he's lost the effortlessness that his crying had—he's got spasms in his chest and he has to force the stupid tears up and out. And when it's all over, he doesn't feel any better.

He just feels kind of worn down. Kind of dead. Kind of like he should start making himself sick again, just in case there's anything left to purge, just in case he missed something, just in case maybe it makes him feel better or anything at all. Even if the pain doesn't lead to the rush of endorphins that Misha wants, or whatever the fuck it is that makes him feel half-okay while everything's falling apart around him, it'd be nice. Jesus Christ, he probably belongs in a goddamn _Lifetime_ movie for this, but right as this thought makes him start edging the toothbrush back toward his throat, he notices: his cellphone's alarm is going off.

The screen's black when he looks at it, though. Which doesn't help, because it means the alarm's been going off for a while now and he just hasn't noticed. The clock on it says he's a good twenty minutes late for his Skype date and he's missed two calls (both from Shepp) and five texts (one from Shepp and four from Jensen)… _Oh. Huh._

Misha guesses that he should feel anything about that. At the very least, he ought to feel guilty because Shepp and Jensen are probably worrying, if they've even noticed. But there's not even the faintest hint of anxiety sparking up between his lungs. He feels kind of like a robot, he supposes, which is pretty depressing, if mostly because he likes to hope that, if robots have to be sentient, then that they could at least have feelings and personalities, like Bender Rodriguez or Commander Data.

Any scientists who'd create sentient AI and leave them like this—just blinking and vacant and wobbling and busted—would be guilty of fucking awful crimes, in Misha's book.

Sighing, Misha crawls up off the floor. Turns off the shower. He cleans up his hands and the not-useful end of his toothbrush. Takes his time—and three mental repetitions of _"Bad Romance"_ —scrubbing out his mouth and gargling, just so there's no chance whatsoever of anybody noticing anything. Finally flushes his puke on his way out the door, because that should have been enough time to fool anyone who could've heard anything before his shuffling steps out into the hall.

Misha's heart leaps in his chest at that notion, but settles back into place after a few seconds. And it strikes him that this worries him more than the thought that he's late and disappointing two of the only people who actually like dealing with him. The thought that anyone could have, possibly, heard him puking over the noise of the shower… is more of a problem than the thought of what he's (possibly) doing by making Shepp and Jensen wait—fucking Hell, he's such a mess.

Still, though, Misha's left them hanging for far too long. He's not at his desk, his computer, a full minute before he's signing onto Skype, and he's not logged on for thirty seconds before the invitation to a three-way chat pops up and, accepting it, he finds himself face-to-face with two of his friends, one of whom kicks everything off by snapping, "Where in the ever-fucking Hell have you fucking _been_?"

Misha frowns. Huffs. And tells Shepp's digital image that he was in the shower, duh. "Which would be why my hair's still wet?" he says with a sigh. Even in a little webcam box, Shepp's expression is obvious and it's one that Misha's never thought he could be on the receiving end of—it's part-grimace, part-wide-eyed gaping, all flushed cheeks and nose-wrinkling and huffing, and in most normal cases, Shepp usually accompanies it with some miscellaneous threat to someone-or-other's continued existence. Misha just shrugs. "I was having—well, Vicki and I were having sibling time, downstairs, and we went on a while, and I needed a shower because I was gross… I just lost track of time, I'm fine."

"Yeah," Jensen says, his skeptically arched eyebrow making itself audible even before Misha glances over to his image on the screen and sees it. That expression doesn't surprise him, nor does the fact that, just like everybody else to whom Misha's lied lately, Jensen doesn't believe him. What surprises Misha is that Jensen's gone kind of pale, and he's nibbling on his lower lip, and he looks like he could cry, for all he tries to pull out some deadpan shit when he goes on: "Sure, Meesh, you… You really… Okay, I can't even try facetiousness with you right now because _fine_ is about the last think that you look."

"Well, I _am_ fine," Misha insists. The more he says it, the less he actually believes it, but Misha keeps up with this lie in the hopes that _someone_ will buy it. "I've just been sick lately—it's probably nothing, but my Mom made me an appointment for a doctor visit, it's in a couple of days, so… How about we, as a group, quit making mountains out of molehills and you two tell me shit about how you're doing? How's life? How're the internships from Hell going? Need help hiding any bodies yet?"

"I second Jensen's emotion," Shepp says with a huff, narrowing his eyes and combing his hand back through his hair—leave it up to this bastard to completely ignore the fucking point. "If you're so _fine_ , then why do you look like you're about to pass out? Not to mention how you've gotten looking rather heroin chic over there—"

"I had a long day at work, for fuck's sake…" The whining and the defensiveness in his voice hit Misha's ears like a kick in the teeth— _this is about the antithesis of acting natural, you moronic fuck; are you really trying to clue them in and get them to drag your ass somewhere people will **make** you eat? are you **trying** to help Vicki sabotage your diet? because she really, really doesn't need anymore help with that, asshole, so why not try having the courage to stand behind your convictions for **once in your fucking life** —_Misha shakes his head and tries to quiet his conscience. Even just long enough to throw out a few words in response to the loud, dismissive scoff that his excuse-making gets him.

"I mean it, Shepp," he sighs, feeling more water start trailing down the back of his neck as he shakes his head again. "I had a long day, and a stressful one, and between that and being kind of sick? That's why I look like Hell. It's really not—there's nothing to worry or write home about, and there's… I mean, unless some test or other comes back and says I have some… Victorian novel wasting disease? Unless we get some kind of confirmation that I'm, y'know, medically in trouble? Then there's really no sense in you getting all worked up over it, you know? It's nothing until proven to be something, and honestly? I'd really rather hear about the two of you. Tell me how you guys are doing."

For a moment, Misha thinks he can see Shepp and Jensen trading a Significant Glance, but it's too hard to tell if it's for real or if he's imagining it based on the positions of the boxes that Skype's put their faces in. Or, shit, it could be both. Maybe it's both. Just like… maybe his conscience is right. Maybe Misha wants to get caught and have it actually stick to him—this thought plagues him even once Shepp and Jensen start talking about themselves and their problems (their problems that are still real problems, in contrast to the problems that Misha makes up for himself). Maybe Misha needs help—maybe it's not that he needs to stick to his diet; maybe he really just needs someone to help him fix whatever's broken inside him, since all he's doing just seems to make it worse.

Or maybe he's just a spineless whelp who needs to fast for another day—not to cleanse his palate from the enforced cake-eating, but for, once again, thinking of how he could burden all his friends and try to make them solve his self-made problems for him. For still refusing to _fucking learn_ how to handle himself.

 

A few days later, when Misha's appointment with Doctor Fulton finally sneaks up on him, he's down to one-fifty-three. He knows this before he shows up at the office and steps up on the scale for the nurse taking his vitals. And maybe it's premature, but he can't stop smirking through the whole process, smirking like having this body requires no effort on his part—he's still standing at five-eleven, his blood pressure is (if anyone cares what he thinks) fantastic, and even before getting a fix on his weight, Nurse Steck says, _well, why don't I just write 'skinny' on this chart for you—I mean, look at this, there's hardly anything left on you._

It's nice of him to say, Misha guesses, and even if it's not true, Misha's more than willing to take the compliment. Especially since he's pointed out his legal adulthood and made Mom stay behind in the waiting room, so she's not around to ruin it. Not just by disapproving of how Misha blatantly checks out how good Nurse Steck's ass looks in his scrubs, either—if she were here, she'd probably rain on his parade by reminding him that he's still three pounds off from where he _needs_ to be, and that he's still kind of pudgy, in certain places, mostly around his middle… Sure, he's doing it for her, and maybe she wouldn't do it after all, but it's _different_ when Misha does this to himself.

When Mom does it, she's harsh, and making things difficult, and pretending that she understands when she clearly doesn't, making all kinds of incorrect presumptions, and so on. When Misha does it, he's just realistic and reminding himself of the things that keep him focused on his diet, which is a good thing. Unarguably so, despite anything anyone else has to say about it.

Except that Doctor Fulton disagrees. Except that, after Misha and Nurse Steck handle all of the inanities of getting a physical done—testing his hearing and his vision and whether or not he can walk in a mostly straight line while stone-cold sober—Doctor Fulton comes into Misha's exam room and seems distracted while he asks the questions about whether or not Misha's into drugs and booze and unprotected sex. The stethoscope comes out next, and Misha's shirt comes off, and he finds, shock of shocks, that it's pretty easy to ignore the freezing cold sensation on his chest, then his back.

On the downside, it's easy to ignore this because he finds himself focusing on Fulton's _hmms_ and _huhs_ —and as Misha sits up and wriggles back into his t-shirt, he finds himself smacked upside the head with a few simple words: "I'm concerned about some of these numbers, Misha… especially considering the frequent headaches and nausea that your mother mentioned, when she called…"

It's all Misha can do to blink and slouch his shoulders, and say, "…oh?" (He needs to break out of saying this as some default answer when things surprise him. It's getting to be a habit, and it makes him sound like an idiot, which he can't have—even if it's understandable that he'd be shocked right now, and maybe even catch himself thinking that he is going to find some way, _any_ way of getting back at the universe for letting Mom get some idea in her head that Misha's _sick_ , for letting Vicki put it there, and for letting the two of them dupe a bunch of otherwise intelligent, rational people like Fulton and the nurses and the other assorted staff—)

"I don't know what she told you guys at the office," Misha starts up before Fulton can even answer his upward inflection, because he just knows he'll need to cover his ass. "And it's not like it's a surprise to me that she's concerned, but… Honestly? She's kind of a drama queen, yeah? It hasn't really been that frequent or anything… Like, sure, this summer hasn't been my best for feeling great, but… she's probably exaggerating. You know. Being a mom. Making too much out of nothing because she's over-anxious or something like that. As far as my voice counts here? I feel fine. Like, as close to stellar as I've felt all summer."

"Interesting, and a question for you, well—more like two of them…" He trails off, ever so slightly, nudging his glasses up his nose, and Misha expects some kind of question about how he manages to keep fit at college, so he can tell a slant version of the truth and brag about how well he's doing… But, no such luck. First, Fulton asks him to open his mouth and say _aaah_ , just before gagging Misha with his oversized popsicle stick.

Second, comes an onslaught of seemingly random questions, pouring out faster than Misha can answer them— _how many glasses of water do you drink in a day? have you ever fainted? felt lightheaded? did you tell the truth about your drinking habits? and any drugs you haven't been prescribed? are you certain that you told Nurse Steck all of the medications that you take? have you been ill with anything that your mother doesn't know about? are you feeling cold recently? getting chills? anything like that?_ —which all build up to the last thing Misha wanted to hear: "Misha, has anyone ever expressed concern that you might have an eating disorder?"

_Fuck._ Misha opens his mouth and tries to find something to say, but only comes up blinking. Staring straight through his doctor to the wall behind him.

_Well, I mean. My ex-boyfriend, my sister, my parents are both worried I guess, the girl who made me cry in high school, Michelle and our boss, and the only two real friends I have think I'm at risk for dropping dead from malnutrition, but that's… That's not, like, a lot of people, right?_ Misha just hopes that the amount of staring he's doing looks like he's just flabbergasted that Fulton would even think to suggest such a thing—and he throws out a torrent of the same old denials, edited only slightly to fit the context—all of the _no, no, I'm fine, there's really not… I've never… Nobody's ever said that to me, I don't know why anybody would, I mean, I know I've lost weight lately but that's only because I put some on this past semester and it's nothing to get concerned about—_

He only shuts up when he notices that Fulton's taking notes on his clipboard. And not just little numbers or jots of ideas—even without being able to see them, Misha knows that these are like a shrink's notes. With sentences and shit. He takes a few deep breaths before saying, as though Fulton might bite him for opening his mouth, "What're you writing."

"Just a few observations… Some stray thoughts, as well. About you and your history…" Fulton sighs and pulls two pamphlets out of the front pocket of his lab-coat, shoving them into Misha's hands.

They're both printed on flimsy yellow paper, with a brownish-purple logo, a monogram that just says _EDA_. Misha blinks down at it, fixing on the logo for a long moment before he can even process the rest of the pamphlet: the words under the monogram, _Eating Disorders Anonymous_ ; the title under that, _Could You Be?_ —the second pamphlet has the same logo, but the title's different: _Talks About ED-NOS, "Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified."_

And while Fulton starts saying things again—as he starts explaining that despite its reputations as a catch-all category or as _not anorexic enough_ , ED-NOS is just as serious a diagnosis as full-on anorexia and bulimia nervosa, just as likely to kill someone, if not more so due to the lack of understanding surrounding it, and it's harder to treat, most insurance companies won't cover its treatment, but Misha shouldn't worry too terribly much, he really shouldn't, because if he _does_ have a disorder, there are options—through all of the rambling, Misha just tries to read the things. Digest whatever they have to tell him, past the words that start blurring together (and he can't tell if it's from his head swimming around or because he's reeling from the shock of this accusation).

At the very least, he tries to make it look like he's reading them. He's not sure how much he wants Fulton to think he's paying attention. He just doesn't want to have to acknowledge everything that's coming out of this asshole doctor's mouth, all of the shit about he doesn't consider himself fully qualified to diagnose Misha with an eating disorder or not, because he's neither a specialist nor a therapist, and it might not be something anyone else would have on Misha's differential, but considering Misha's diagnosed anxiety disorders, and considering his history of weight problems and the related issues, not least the bullying and getting picked on for his weight, he's predisposed to some kind of eating issues—

"There's no stigma against _losing_ weight, the way you have," he explains, despite the vibes that Misha tries to broadcast, the way he hunches his shoulders and hides behind the pamphlets and tries to say _please fuck off, I don't want to talk about this anymore_ without having to use his words. All of which Fulton's content to ignore: "People see it as a show of strength and competence, of getting your life together, but… The fact of the matter is that it can lead to other problems, especially with the personal adjustment it requires, both physically and psychologically, and with how extreme your weight loss was—"

"It wasn't that extreme." _It took a few years, two summers at fat camp, following my mom and Aunt Raven to Weight Watchers meetings, and more failed diets than I can fucking count, and I wasn't even that thin when everybody else decided that I was done—everybody else but me and Mom, anyway, because we knew one-seventy-five was barely good enough—and besides, there's still the time issue and how it wasn't that extreme… Even **this** round of slimming down wasn't that extreme. It was just faster than I've lost weight before because I know what I'm doing now and got a handle on myself._

Misha glances up from the pamphlet and into one of the most skeptical looks he's ever seen on anyone but Vicki. He shrugs, tries to give Fulton a doe-eyed expression like _what I don't know how you're judging this stuff, I don't know what you're talking about here_. "It wasn't that extreme, though… I mean, sure, it was a lot of weight, but it was all about health, right? It's not extreme if it's for health reasons or anything. And it was just, like…" He shrugs again. Putting him in these sort of situations ought to be fucking illegal. "I didn't think it was that extreme…?"

"See, that's the kind of attitude that I find worrisome, Misha…" _Fucking seriously? What in God's name was worrying about that?_

"You _did_ accomplish a great deal in deciding to change your life by losing weight, and by deciding to take control of your health." _I didn't decide to change anything, you son of a bitch—Mom decided for me and I had to steal the control, the choice all back from her. Don't give her the credit for everything that **I've** done._

"And by devaluing all the work that you've done to get healthy, both to lose the weight initially and then to maintain that success afterward—especially when so many dieters backslide while you've actually gotten thinner?" _You have no idea how much work I've done. You have no idea how my weight's really been. You don't even know what I have to do, so stop acting like you're so fucking smart—_

"By talking yourself down like that, Misha, you send off certain signals to a guy like me—someone who knows enough about eating disorder symptoms and presentation to see the warning signs and understands them… not as well as he could, granted, but enough to help—" _I don't have the warning signs of anything, what the Hell is wrong with everybody, why can't you people just let me take care of myself._

"This is complicated, for me, by your blood pressure—"

"But my blood pressure was _fine_." Staying quiet's a bit too much effort for Misha, right now—he could probably manage it, somehow, but he doesn't want to, and now that he's started… "It was, like, what? A hundred-and-two over something, right? That's normal—that's good, and I haven't been on medication for it since—"

"Misha, your blood pressure was ninety-one over fifty-eight." (Misha blinks, but manages not to ask what's so wrong with that—lower blood pressure is supposed to be a good thing, right?) "That's right at the cut-off point for hypotension—it's in a vague area where it could be normal or it could be too low, but… When coupled with your temperature—which was a few degrees lower than normal—and with where your blood pressure was at this point last year, and with the general downward trend your weight's taken for the past few years… You're still within the normal—that is, the _healthy_ —weight range for your height, but this is the lowest weight you've ever held… This all looks like a pack of compelling evidence, from where I'm standing."

All Misha does is shake his head. That's about all he can manage until the ability to use words comes back to him. "It's circumstantial evidence," he says. "At best." _Not even Alex Cabot and Casey Novak would try to take your case to trial, Doctor, because they're the franchise's best ADAs and even they'd get ripped to fucking shreds by the defense team._

Misha sighs. Takes another deep breath and looks up at the ceiling before closing his eyes. Sighing again—because he can't fuck any part of this up. He just can't. If he screws up any single part of anything, it's all too likely that Fulton might read between Misha's lines and see things that aren't there but that could still derail Misha's entire life. Getting all of the words right in this is important and Misha knows that—but it's more complicated than that. Than how he can't verbalize all the things he thinks because they're too easily misinterpreted—Misha has to get the performance right, get everything about this monologue down pat, or else he's kind of screwed.

Or else there will be _more_ lines to read between and, being a medical professional who's got his hackles up, Fulton probably will, and Misha _cannot. let. that. happen._

"I'm not…" Misha sighs. Huffs in frustration because words are just so hard. Lets his eyelids flutter in bemusement as he looks back down, meets Fulton's gaze with his eyes wide, his brow furrowed, his lips ever-so-slightly parted. "No one's ever said any of that to me, or anything in these pamphlets… Like, okay, sometimes, I like to treat myself. Sometimes, I miss meals—but it's not like, a habit. It's like once in a while. And it's not I intentionally skip them or anything, it's usually more like I get hyper-focused on something and forget to eat…"

He shrugs as if to say that what, this is all new territory for him, he's confused. "And, I mean, Vicki does it, too, and I even did it when I was fat, and I'd rather have a couple moments of being an airhead than the whole… cluster of stuff that made me fat in the first place? And just… All of the stuff in here? It doesn't sound like me at all. It sounds like something I wouldn't wish on anybody, but it doesn't sound like me."

_It sounds pretty much exactly like me and I can't let you think anything about that. Now shut up, give me my Best Actress Oscar, tell Meryl Streep I beat her and my Susan Lucci streak is over, and let me go the fuck home—I had to cut my run short this morning and it's really pissing me off._

Fulton sighs. Nods. "Well, then… We're just going to have to run a few other tests, then… Just to rule out any other causes and see what we have to do to treat the hypotension—it could even be a one-time fluke, so just… Come back next week, the week after maybe—as long as you get in before you have to go to school, we'll be fine. Whatever's going on, if it's anything… We'll make plans and get it figured out, and… Tell your mom not to worry too much, alright? We've got a couple weeks left. That's probably more than we'll even need."

Misha nods. Smiles (attempting as best as he can to repress the smirk tugging at his lips). Agrees that this all sounds good to him. _Oh my gosh, this is so overwhelming, I didn't even know I was nominated and I'd like to thank the fucking Academy._

 

Once they've drawn the blood and had him piss in a cup, once he's gotten this year's flu vaccine and the all-clear to get out and go home, Misha slouches out to the waiting room, and schedules an appointment before he even looks at Mom. Out in the car, he reports his weight for her benefit and her curiosity but repeats nothing else that Doctor Fulton said. Especially not all of the parts about Misha's _history_ and _predisposing factors_ and anything about the pamphlets that feel like fucking boulders in Misha's messenger bag. Mom doesn't need to hear any of that.

Especially not when it's all a load of crap. Fulton even _said_ he's not a specialist in eating issues, and that Misha's weight is healthy for his height and frame, so there's no fucking reason to go and bother Mom with a bunch of bullshit that's not worth worrying over. It's not worth thinking that hard about, since the level of wrongness in it is so immense. It's definitely not a reason to risk starting a fight.

And he's thinking that they might just go home. Misha has no idea what his feelings are doing to him or why, and all he wants to do is change out of his jeans, into his sweatpants and sneakers, and just go for a run. He hasn't eaten enough to purge today—he hasn't eaten anything at all, despite telling Vicki and their parents that he ate before his morning job, despite cracking two eggs into the garbage disposal and leaving their shells in the sink to complete the illusion—so he needs to run. He wants to run until his legs give out and his heart causes earthquakes and the only thing he can feel is the warm, flooding rush of endorphins and exhaustion all mixed up in his head and his muscles. Instead, Misha ends up slumped against the door of Mom's passenger seat, telling her some crap about how Fulton's not really worried, says he's fine.

Instead, he ends up listening to Mom sigh at him like she couldn't be any more disappointed if she tried, like she wanted something more substantial—he considers the possibility that she wanted him to get some wake-up call, but probably, she just wanted him to weigh less than this, to have gotten all the way down to one-fifty because he knows that she thinks this is his ideal weight… That's what Misha would want out of himself, if he were her, anyway.

Instead of doing anything productive or good, they end up at Audrey's, in Sarah's section all over again, because it's approximately lunchtime and Mom feels like it and the universe still hates Misha and wants to ruin his goddamn life. _Haven't I proven my commitment to my diet time and time e-fucking-nough? Why does the universe have to keep testing me?_ Not only does Mom watch Misha's eating closer than Vicki ever has, but when he tries to just ask for a glass of water and a Diet Coke, she pipes up and orders a milkshake for him. A fucking _strawberry_ milkshake. Because she knows that strawberry milkshakes make him weak and because a bacon cheeseburger _seriously_ wasn't enough food to make a lunch from, even with a side of fries.

In what distorted crazy world does a bacon cheeseburger and fries fail to constitute a "proper lunch"? How is that _not_ more than enough fucking food?

The sickest thing is that Misha could even see himself being sort of okay with everything, except for one stupid detail: the milkshake. If not for the fucking milkshake, Misha might not mind that his doctor's clearly gone insane, and his mother's a fucking worrywart, and Sarah keeps arching her eyebrows at him like she knows what's going to happen if he keeps eating—he might not even mind that Sarah's probably right or that he's breaking that promise he made where she can fucking watch him do it—except for the fucking _milkshake_.

With the straw brushing up against his lips, all he can think about is Richard—about how milkshakes were their _thing_ , a huge part of how they got Richard to put on as much weight as he did, something that they shared, not least because Richard could down huge helpings of them, even when he thought that he was full… Wherever the fuck that asshole is, Misha hopes it _sucks_ , because his life's not going that well and whatever lingering anything he feels for Richard, he just wants somebody to suffer with him. And no one else has fucked him over enough—at least, not recently—to deserve that. Not even Vicki with her sick obsession with making Misha eat cake.

Misha doesn't even wait, once he's cleaned his plate, sucked down the last of the milkshake—there's the briefest moment of excusing himself and darting to the bathroom, locking the door behind him, but everything jerks together and he feels his knees hit the floor before he even fully recognizes what's going on or what he's doing. He knows he's purging. He knows he _needs_ to purge—the dull scratch of his nails on the back of his throat reminds him that he _needs to work faster, go go go, now now now, come on, it's like poisonous lava, don't let it stay inside you or you'll fucking die_ —but it's not until the sludge and food and bile start coming up that Misha's head clears.

He wishes that it hadn't. First, comes the recognition of the fact that, once again, he's crying. Once again, he's emptying his eyes more than his stomach and stabbing at the back of his throat all the harder because he has to do it—nobody else understands that he _needs_ to do this, but he does. Second, come all the thoughts he doesn't want—the thoughts that he's never enough… Never good enough for Mom. Never good enough for himself. Never rebellious enough for Vicki. Never stable enough for Richard, or desirable enough for Jensen. Never gay enough for anybody, because "bisexual" means he's only halfway there, and it can't just be that he likes more than just one gender; it has to be a deficiency, some sign of confusion or conniving opportunism or God only knows what else.

Never thin enough, never committed enough, to have a fucking eating disorder—because even if he had the willpower and the determination that typifies people who _really_ have them, even if he had the distorted body image that people need to count as sick, even if everything else lined up with the symptoms… His weight's not below some arbitrary cut-off point of medically underweight. Sometimes, he purges instead of strictly restricting—sometimes, he binges, even though it's forced on him by other people, by people who should be fucking supportive of his desire to be healthy, his attempts to get healthy—and sometimes, he pushes through what other people would define as his distorted thought processes to wonder if his idea of a binge is what normal people would think of as a standard meal (plus-or-minus a little treat), if he's as sick as people seem to think, if maybe he really does need help.

His so-called symptoms are too mixed up, his weight's not low enough—nor will it get low enough, because he'll be satisfied once he reaches one-fifty, he knows that he will—and what he offers just _isn't enough to count_ as sick. So, what's the point of admitting anything, even if it exists? It's not like Misha could get help if he wanted it—the only things he has for help are restricting, and fasting, and working out until it hurts, and his fingers going down his throat until everything he ate comes up and there's nothing left to get out of him.

Misha doesn't pay attention to time, just assumes that he's probably taking a while. After all, he's got a lot of crap food and calories to gag up—but hardly anything's changed when he skulks out of the bathroom. The only real difference he sees is that Sarah's standing by the cash register, and as he wanders over to buy a pack of sugar-free mint-flavored gum, she glares at him like _you miserable fuck—I fucking warned you not to do this, you mother-fucking promised_.

As much as he wants the rush instead, Misha looks down at her irritated kitten expression and feels nothing whatsoever—and it's not the same, not as good of a feeling (it's hardly even a feeling, really, as much as it's an absence thereof), but it's better than anything else, so he guesses he'll take it. He'll take it and he'll go on a detox for the next week or so—fast for the first two days, then only give himself water, black coffee, egg whites, and melon, then run for long enough to burn off that and more.

It's not a matter of willpower—he more than has the willpower—it's all a matter of remembering that the only person he can satisfy anymore is himself. And he can't let anyone, not even Mom, keep him from that.


	10. The more you'll feel undefined.

The morning of move-in day finds Misha awake before everybody else, awake before he would be on any normal day. He only gets to run for an hour-and-a-half before he has to come in, get the rest of his junk into the car, and it's probably a miracle that he gets Vicki off his case for long enough to sneak a glimpse at the scale. He hasn't checked his weight since his follow-up visit to Doctor Fulton's office—at that, he deliberately fucked with the results; he wore his baggy yoga pants to hide the seven-pound wrist-weight he duct-taped to his hip to throw the scale off, so his weight at the last appointment would look like the fluke. The trick of the scale.

More importantly, though, he needed to keep himself in suspense (keep himself _motivated_ to shave off the last of the weight that's held him back, because even doing the math couldn't allow him to un-see the _158_ that glared up at him, couldn't make him stop thinking that fuck, he was getting fat again). And he could've kissed his new favorite companion for how much easier it made the appointment—his blood pressure was still low, but the four cups of coffee helped throw that off, and he was still sort of cold, but even at his heaviest, his temperature's run on the low side, so it might not've been anything to write home about… His test results had come back in and while some things looked a bit off-kilter, on the low end of normal, but probably nothing to worry about.

The best part of everything was that the wrist-weights were an impulse-buy of the highest order and here they were—saving his life. Making him look more normal, as far as numbers were concerned. A knee-jerk reaction to Misha realizing the signs of contentment starting to skulk back into his life. He bought the set, and a companion set for his ankles, because he's felt his dedication flagging. He's felt himself struggling on runs that shouldn't even begin to phase him, feeling dizzy less than halfway in, and he needs more motivation—he needs that little impetus to push himself over the edge into efficiency. Just so nothing can stop him from getting to where he needs to be.

Maybe he _should've_ looked into weighing himself before now, just to stave off the nagging sensation at the back of his neck—that worry pricking at his skin, the one that says maybe he hasn't lost enough weight, maybe he's even gained it, maybe he's slipped up and let himself down all over again, just like he always does, but… well. Could've, would've, should've, didn't. He didn't because he doesn't trust the numbers not to fuck with his head, and he doesn't trust himself not to obsess in unproductive ways—but even that thought doesn't settle Misha's stomach or soothe his fraying nerves. The fact that he's right just reminds him that he's a perpetual fuck-up, that anyone else would be able to handle a few simple numbers.

Not Misha, though. Not Misha because he complicates everything until it's damned impossible—and now, he can't handle stomaching his own insufficiency, his inability to keep his head. He can't go to school weighing _???_ or _XXX_ , not when those variables might be more than one-fifty. He needs to get a fix on this. He has to fucking know. Before he can get in the car and stay there, before he can even think about going to the Collegeboxes warehouse to pick his stuff up or moving in or anything else, Misha needs to know how much he weighs.

Even when he sees the _147_ staring up at him, Misha doesn't enjoy anything about where he's gotten to or about the end result. He's beaten Mom's goal weight, and the one he set for himself, and… it's not enough. Not even remotely. He sighs at the guy in the mirror and isn't sure that he knows who it is—sure, it's _him_ , there's no one else it could be, but the creature in this reflection looks so _thin_. Not drawn, or entirely unhealthy just yet, but definitely thinner than Misha, even sort of pathetic, for how he seems to wobble, unsure of whether he should stand or blend into the wallpaper… His legs quiver underneath him, right in time with the reflection-creature's teetering, which just reminds Misha that he's looking at himself.

For some sickening definition of _himself_. Is he even human? Misha doesn't feel like it, not really, and he's not sure the _thing_ that purports to be him is human, either. Maybe it used to be. Maybe _he_ used to be—maybe they're both wraiths and they've clawed their way out of a tomb to get here—but the feeling's not there anymore—all the angles are too sharp, the shadows that his hipbones cast too dark, the hollows of his cheeks too deep… His skin's too pale and the deadened, hungry look in his eyes has a gloss to it, some sheen of grime that's caked itself over everything.

Grimacing, Misha wriggles out of his t-shirt, and he wishes that he had Mom's tape measure around to put a number on his waist's circumference, because there's no way in Hell that it's as trim as his reflection's looks. And there's no way that his collarbone is that prominent, that his hipbones could possibly strain so sharp against his skin… Misha shudders when he tries to sigh. Like something's dying and its death rattle makes his lungs—his entire body, even, convulse. He tries to grab for any fat on his frame, but when he comes up with something in his grasp, he _knows_ that it's more skin than fat. Misha brushes his fingers down his stomach, feels the way it takes a dip where he remembers it being so much more convex—it seems like just yesterday that he had pudge here—not just a bit of it, but a gut and worse.

He doesn't feel any of that now, though, not underneath his touch. He doesn't see it in the mirror. But it's still there—he knows that it's still there, he knows that it has to be there—it has to be there because he can feel it. Feel its presence. He can't get his hands on it. It's running from him, hiding from him, trying to keep him from getting proof of its existence and continued presence in his life, but he's not… He isn't… He can't let that dissuade him; he won't let it dissuade him; Misha _knows that his flab is still here_. So why won't it just do him a favor and agree with his convictions?

He runs his hands down his sides, recalling the feeling of love-handles and soft flesh to sink his fingers into, and only coming up with a lack of something. A lack of everything. The bumps of where his ribs make themselves so much easier to find. Not that they're protruding, not especially, but he doesn't have to struggle to find them. He peels back his yoga pants without taking them off, frowns at his thighs… Why would they do that to him. Why would his mind do this to him—why would it try to convince him that there's such a gap between his legs. Why is everything in the world trying so hard to make him get content. Why does everything want him to slip up and get fat again—because this is the only explanation that makes sense, the only one that ties everything together.

There has to be something delusional going on, now—something making him imagine how loose on him these pants are, how low they ride on his hips—and he can't trust it. Can't give in to the admittedly severe temptation to just… get off his diet, cut himself a break or ten, relax like everybody wants him to and get fat all over again. _It'd be easier, at any rate—there'd be no more hassle, no more stress, just the knowledge that I'm a failure who can't even manage the bare minimum of self-control._ Shaking his head, Misha hops up on the scale again. Sees the same _147_ —fucking Hell, he might not be imagining this—and before he can ponder everything too long, Vicki bangs on the bathroom door. Shouts at him that come on, little brother, they have to get going or they won't get moved in until past midnight.

As he puts his shirt back on and returns to looking somewhat normal, as he tugs on his yoga pants' waistband and does them up tighter, Misha's not sure if he wants to smack her or hug her and tell her everything, beg her to take him somewhere he could get help. But the numbers flash through his mind again, all bright red and ominous—and he remembers the figures that he put together, the list that's in his journal… Even if he really wanted help—even if he wouldn't regret asking for it in the morning—Misha probably couldn't get it. He's still a good twenty pounds too fat to qualify for getting help.

He sighs. Combs his fingers back through his hair and tries to power through the rest of these preparations. He manages until he's in the car, until he's allowed to slump against the window for a nap. Since Misha can't get help, he guesses that he'll have to help himself, rely on himself. Just like he has all summer. _It'll all be fine. Put the focus on maintaining weight instead of losing and everything should sort itself out—besides, the fat's probably still here, somewhere—so if a few more pounds come off, then it's probably for the best anyway._

 

Misha sleeps through the entire drive, and when he wakes up at the apartment, he still thinks they're in the parking lot of the Collegeboxes storage facility. As he flops out of the backseat (into the sunlight that has no right to scald his eyes like that), he asks whether or not Dad wants him to help fetch boxes, and doesn't examine his surroundings in the slightest until he notes that Dad and Vicki are both gaping at him. Dad's expression, at least, is one of genuine shock—no doubt something to the tune of, _Kid, I know you're not a genius like your sister, but aren't you supposed to be some kind of smart anyway?_ —which Misha can't blame Dad for wanting to ask, he guesses. He'd want his hypothetical son not to act like an idiot, too.

Vicki, on the other hand, blenches. Rolls out her shoulders and still fails to mask the tension coursing through them. Knots up her brow and scrunches her nose and looks like she's ready to batter a baby seal to death, not even for the useful parts of its body but just because she's angry. Without her saying anything, her whole person screams, _You son of a bitch, do you have any idea how fucked up this is getting—how fucked up it's gotten and how fucked up **you are** —you told me that your goddamn doctor said that your test results were fine, if you lied to me, I hope that Yog-Sothoth has mercy because I won't and I'll make God and Cthulhu get on my fucking side._

…Okay, maybe Misha's projecting onto that a little much. He should know better than to think Vicki would work with Cthulhu when her loyalties will most likely go to Hastur. She's always preferred the King in Yellow above all others and, on the most positive side that Misha can find, at least he doesn't have to think too hard, or for too long—he barely even gets a moment to turn his thought processes into a dick joke before he's scooped up into a hug. Before he hears Jensen's warm, throaty laugh bouncing around his ear. Misha sighs, throwing his arms around Jensen's chest, and wishing that he could just get lost in this embrace, find himself wrapped up in Jensen until there might as well not be any Misha left—but that doesn't get to last, either. Not that anything Misha wishes for ever does.

It doesn't last because Jensen, unlike Misha, has some sense that there are other things going on in the world, things aside from whatever it is that _he_ wants. He pulls back and there's a beat—another beat—Misha's heart thumps its slow, ponderous thump—and then his skin starts squirming. He takes a deep breath, sucking his stomach in and trying to hold it there without thinking about it. All eyes are on him—Jensen's, and his mother's, his father's, and Mackenzie's (from where she's climbing out of the Ackles's van), Shepp's (as he wanders up behind Jensen)—Misha swallows thickly and tongues at his lips. This is probably where he should have something witty to say. Something that will back up the storm of, _no, it's fine; I swear, I'm fine; everything's fine, I'm fine_ building up inside his chest.

But before he can come up with something, much less open his mouth, Mrs. Ackles invites herself into his personal space, wraps Misha up in a hug and says it's _so good_ to see him again. His whole chest brightens up like Christmas lights (because finally, there's someone who wants him around, who doesn't just see his weight), and he expects to hear something validating, something about how he looks so thin and it's such a good look for him and maybe he can be some inspiration for her own son—because Donna can fake it all she wants, act like she's never done anything like Mom has, but Misha hasn't forgotten hearing horror stories about her from Jensen; not because Misha actually wants to hear anything like that said about anyone, much less about his best friend, who's always been sexy, could never manage not to be—

But, instead, as he returns the hug, Misha gets the following reward: "Oh, _Sweetie_ ," Donna half-coos, half-sighs, her face all awkwardly close to his neck. "Misha, honey, are you feeling alright? You're not—you _are_ feeling alright, aren't you?"

Over by the trunk, shouldering Misha's backpack, Mom glances over at him and knots her brow up just like Vicki did, frowns—she pauses everything and just watches Misha. Makes some expression that could be frowning, or could be pursing her lips—Misha's not even remotely sure about what it is, aside from how it makes his stomach churn like he's going to be sick against his will. Aside from how they fall into their own world, how everything aside from himself and Mom slips out of Misha's recognition, how even Mom seems to fade as Misha stares so long that he looks right through her. How it only comes back when he shakes his head and sighs and looks at Jensen instead.

"I'm fine—I mean, it's good to see you too, Donna, but I'm also fine…" He squeezes her a little tighter, as though this makes his argument absolutely unimpeachable. "I've… I just had a summer flu sort of thing for a while—but it's not contagious anymore and I'm fine… Just been kind of sick for a little while. It's okay."

As he lies without thinking about it, Misha wishes that he'd had the foresight to just close his eyes or something. Then he wouldn't have to watch Shepp and Jensen trade the most incredulous, frustrated glances Misha's ever seen in his life.

 

While they work on moving into the apartment, everything's calm—as calm as it can be while a small army of people are carting boxes up from the parking lot and while Mom won't shut up about the pile of take-out menus by the door, anyway. Donna joins in with her, after a while, asking if there's anything even vaguely healthy to get from take-out around here, which ends with Shepp and Vicki going to pick up vegan Thai so everyone can have lunch. Misha does his best to help, to shrug off how heavy everything's feeling, how his arms and shoulders strain to carry suitcases much less boxes, how his head's a mess of white noise and swimming like he's getting dragged underwater.

By the time food becomes some kind of public issue, Misha can't even make himself breathe right, doesn't feel like it anyway, because it's a great deal of effort and he has to think about all the inhaling and exhaling. He barely gets a few bites of his Pad Thai down before his stomach clenches up on him—Misha didn't want to eat it, in the first place; he only put the fork between his lips because there are too many people here, and four of them (at least) suspect that something's wrong with Misha and how he gets along with food, and his whole body takes on the task of reminding him of how the food might as well be poison. How he can't keep it down or everything he's worked for could explode in his face, just like his waistline will.

Misha shivers, trying to stay in his seat and trying to keep eating, not least because Shepp's watching him like a stalker. He tries to keep his head about him. Tries slowly, silently counting to ten to calm himself the fuck down—he gets through thirteen repetitions and still only manages to swallow two mouthfuls more. And all Misha gets as a reward is that his breath hitches in his throat after each one, that he has the privilege of feeling like the color drain from his face—he scratches at his palm, digs his nails in and tells himself to just sit still—but his stomach protests. His lungs flop around like dying fish and his stomach does flip-flops on him…

As Misha springs up to his feet and dashes from the kitchen, he whimpers, _excuse me, I think I'm…_ and he swears he can feel the food and bile crawling back up his throat before he's locked the bathroom door behind him, much less started jabbing at the back of his throat. He shouldn't fucking do this—not with so many people in the apartment, so many people who could hear him being sick and get the wrong idea (wrong before it would get in Misha's way because, unfortunately, it'd probably be right)—and this is going to be the last time. The absolute last. He doesn't care how bad it gets. He's not going to end up like all the girls who blatantly make themselves puke in the dining hall bathrooms and act like nobody knows.

Finally, how out of it he tends to get these days decides to work to his advantage—finally, he gets something out of it other than some temporary numbness. He staggers out of the bathroom after he-has-no-goddamn-clue-how-long, after upchucking and forcing himself to at least rinse out his mouth so it won't taste disgusting for the rest of the day, and Misha tries to get back to work. Because everybody else is eating, but since he can't eat right now, and since no one rounds on him or accuses him of puking on purpose, Misha should go get more stuff out of the cars and bring it up. Help get this done sooner, since the only person he's helped so far today is him-fucking-self.

Except stumbling toward the door means stumbling into Dad, who seems to swoop out of nowhere like he's fucking Batman— _weren't you just sitting at the table…_ Dad wraps his hands around Misha's shoulders, turns him around and walks him over to the sofa. Sits Misha down and tells him, in no uncertain terms, that he's not doing anything else until he feels better and looks less likely to pass out. Even after he has Vicki bring over a glass of water and a few Saltines, he doesn't let Misha reach for them, much less attempt to get off the sofa.

"You don't get to just vomit out of nowhere and try to run back into the fray like that, Misha," Dad says with a frown that screams, _hate this all you want now, but you'll thank me for it later_. "Relax. Put your feet up. Get some damned rest. And if you get off this couch and try to do anything strenuous, I'll not be very happy with you."

Misha blinks up at his father, more staring through his head to the wall behind him—that is, when Misha's eyes focus properly. He _wants_ to scream about how it's not Dad's fucking decision, what Misha chooses to do with his life or his body or anything—but the lights are still bright enough to make Misha wince, and he can hardly think anything through all of the haze in his head, and opening his mouth just makes him yawn. Sighing, trying his best not to look at anyone around them or the faces that they're making at him (all varying degrees of concern, suspicion, and judgment), Misha curls up with one of the throw pillows for a nap.

He'll feel better after a nap, and besides, napping means he's not awake, which means he can't give in to hunger or to weakness.

 

The calm he gets is nice. The calm hangs around, too, as far as Misha notices—he's in tranquil enough waters to relax and stay asleep, at least. He sleeps right through everyone leaving to move Vicki's stuff into the place she's getting with Danneel and their douchebag friends. The first time Misha wakes up is some several hours later, and it's only because Jensen, Vicki, and their parents are heading out to stock the fridge and cabinets, they just wanted to know if Misha wanted anything in particular. He doesn't, but asks for some white tea, some green tea, and some instant oatmeal anyway, so they'll think he gives a shit about something.

And it's not really awkward for Shepp and Mackenzie to hang out with each other in an apartment that isn't theirs, but they don't know each other that well, so Misha tries to stay awake. He doesn't manage all that well, though. His head's not in the conversation—their voices come to him like through a filter and he doesn't care enough to really listen—and it's pure force of will just to stay upright. What he _does_ manage is nodding off and entirely failing to notice until Shepp jostles his shoulder—yawning, Misha blinks up at Shepp and wonders if he should feel something, just in some reaction to how upset his friend looks.

"Did you even bloody sleep last night?" Shepp huffs, wrinkling his nose (which just makes Misha want to tweak it, which isn't his fault because Shepp's the one who's being uncharacteristically adorable). "Really, Misha, how out of it _are_ you, right now?"

Misha shrugs, and says it's nothing—he didn't really sleep that well, no, because he's been sick—and he yawns again. Which makes Shepp pat his shoulder and tell him to go back to sleep. The calm returns, thank God. Or Yog-Sothoth. Or Satan. Or whoever's decided that Misha doesn't have to suffer all the time.

But that all changes once Mom and Dad shove off for home, once Jensen's parents and Mackenzie head out so they can hopefully get to tonight's motel before it gets too late. Even while Shepp's still there, the air thickens up like a storm's moving in until it's a miracle that Misha's still breathing, that there's any oxygen left to take in and that he can handle any of it at all, because it doesn't feel like air, it feels like trying to breathe with his head submerged in a milkshake. Everything gets worse once Shepp excuses himself, cites having to fuck off and do something-or-other at his own place. And as the door slams behind him, the calm explodes. Erupts.

Shatters into a million pieces as Misha turns down Vicki's offer of hot cocoa ( _I just don't feel up to it right now, Vicki? Could… I'm thirsty, though, so could I have some tea instead? Please?_ ), and those pieces break up into smaller fragments as Jensen rounds on the sofa. Misha doesn't look up at him—one flash of anger across Jensen's eyes convinces him that, no, really, making eye contact might kill him. He's upright, if only barely, and he curls up around himself that much tighter, just trying to breathe slowly, evenly, calmly enough to make his head stop spinning.

"You want to tell me what the fuck's going on here already?" Jensen's voice thunders through the apartment without him raising it that much. And Misha shrugs. And this just makes him worse: "No, seriously, Misha. You _want_. To tell me. What in the fuck is going on here."

All Misha can manage is shrugging. Glancing down at the floor because the floor won't judge him. The question might not be that difficult— his parents might've left the building and freed him up to answer it with some degree of honesty—but that prospect has teeth. Huge teeth— _fangs_ , even—and it keeps gnashing them at Misha, threatening him with all the different kinds of things that could go wrong if he tells the truth—and still… he can't outright _lie_ to Jensen…

Misha sighs, leans his head back onto the cushion and, moving slowly, in a voice like microwaved death, rattles off the barest bare-bones version of events: "Well. We moved in. My mother doesn't think it's very responsible for local businesses to give discounts to the college kids, and my dad thinks you're a very interesting young man, he's just sorry all your meetings have been short because he'd really like to get to know you better, sometime. Your mom seems like she's in a good mood? You and Vicki think Mom's being silly about the take-out stuff. She thinks she's right, though. About the restaurants, especially. Because it's encouraging the kids to make poor choices. And now they're gone—Mom and Dad, I mean—and Shepp's gone, Vicki's making tea, and you're making a _lot_ of noise."

_Jesus Christ, I'm good—fucking Hemingway couldn't find any extra words in that fucking story._

"And how messed up you've been means, _what_ , exactly?" Jensen huffs, crosses his arms over his chest—his words snap like a viper; his shoulders hunch as though he's a wolf preparing to attack; his glare could freeze a forest fire in place—it even gets Misha to shiver, pull his knees in closer to his chest. "No, seriously, Meesh… Does it mean _absolutely, fuck-all nothing_ that you look like some starving supermodel, you've barely eaten since I've seen you, and you've been two steps off from passing out all day?"

_Why do you have to fucking lie like that, Jensen? Supermodels look so much skinnier than I do—I'm barely even into skinny territory, you dick—why do you have to tease me with what I can't have?_ "…my head hurts," Misha says, barely above a whisper.

"Yeah, you think there might be a _reason_ for that?"

"Yeah, I do, actually. Namely: my best friend's _fucking yelling_ at me—"

" _You think there might be a reason for that, too?_ "

Misha shakes his head—he knows better. In some half-baked way that he can barely keep a grasp on, Misha knows not to insist anything even remotely like this… but the words stumble out of his mouth anyway: "No… I mean. Not really, no. You're just kind of being really, _really_ loud, okay?"

"He's being really, _really_ loud because of your really, _really_ worrying behavior, you idiot," Vicki snaps, looking up from her attentive tending to the teapot. "Now tell him about what happened in the past three months or I will—and I'm not going to leave out the details just because you want to protect Mom—"

"Oh, fuck off," Misha sighs, and shakes his head, lets it loll back into the sofa cushion. "Mom didn't do _anything. wrong_ , Vicki—" He pauses at the gaping look she gives him, stays quiet at the completely lost expression on Jensen's face, and sighs because it's the only thing he can do. "Okay, I admit: I've been on a diet all summer and maybe I went a little bit overboard with it, but… My weight's only down to one-fifty-five, okay? So it's normal, and it's fine, and my doctor thinks it's normal and fine, and today isn't typical of anything—"

"It's not typical of anything… and you just. Didn't look all zombified and gross that time on Skype?" Jensen bristles, rolling his shoulders and hugging himself tighter. "All of this is just… completely coincidental, just random instances of you being sick and they don't add up to anything."

"Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying." _You know what's really fucking sick about this situation? That I can lie so easily and you guys are still more fucking interested in my fucking weight._ "And now I? Am done with this conversation. I'd really just like to have my tea and maybe watch a movie, if that's alright with the two of you."

 

As the night finally starts winding down and Vicki wanders back to her own place, Misha tries to go to bed early—they might not have to run off to registration and signing up for classes for a few days, yet, but there's all sorts of unpacking to do tomorrow and, fuck it all, he's _exhausted_. This only becomes a problem when he ends up in the wrong bedroom. Which is hardly his fault, considering he and Jensen are currently decorating with beds, desks, dressers, assorted suitcases, and some stacks of boxes. (Misha's confusion is all because of how impersonal the rooms still are; it has absolutely nothing to do with his eating or lack thereof, because that is _stupid_. Misha knows how to handle himself when he's hungry.)

Anyway, it doesn't really matter to him where he kicks off his yoga pants and flops onto a mattress, not when he just wants to be comfortable and horizontal. He only notices anything off at all when he's half-asleep and hears the door creaking open. Groaning, whining for Jensen to go away, Misha grabs at a spare pillow and tosses it over his face, not just because the hallways lights are still on and he's _so close to conking out_ —but, more than that, he's pretty sure he looks pathetic right now, and anybody else would be allowed to see him like this… but not Jensen. Maybe he's stupid, hoping for anything (even in the distant way where Misha doesn't really hope at all, just sometimes kind of wishes…), but he still wants Jensen to think the best of him.

As close to "the best" as they can get when Jensen knows that Misha's a fucking mess, at least.

Instead of leaving, Jensen sighs. Closes the door. Shuffles around a bit without turning the light on, and eventually flops down next to Misha, which prompts more whining for him to _go awaaaaay_ —which, in turn, just makes Jensen snicker. "You're in my bed, dumb-ass," he says. "And it's not even my birthday or anything. Most people would call me lucky."

"Yeah, that's because most people are _idiots_ …" Misha huffs and starts trying to sit up, only to find an arm snaking around his chest and tugging him back down to the mattress. He pauses. Takes a deep breath and counts to ten in his head. "…Jenny? Doesn't, 'you're in my bed, dumb-ass,' usually come with some, I don't know… subtext of, 'get the fuck out of my bed'? Like, shouldn't I… I can _go_ …"

For a moment, there's silence as Misha gets tugged around, but when Jensen shakes his head and mutters, _nah, we're cool like this_ , it's with his face up against the back of Misha's neck. That thick Texas drawl whispering into Misha's hair and his slightly chapped lips grazing over the vague area where spine and neck curve together. All of which is closer than anybody else has gotten to Misha since Richard ran screaming for a significant other with some degree of stability. He probably shouldn't want to get closer—whether he's as skinny and half-dead-looking as the mirror thinks or not (he's probably not, but he wouldn't put it past Jensen to get worried over nothing), Misha's curled up and spooning with his best friend. His platonic best friend. His platonic best friend who could do so much better than him—but he wants more of this.

He's warm, properly warm, for the first time in ages, and _he wants more of this._

He nudges back into Jensen's chest, wraps a hand around the one that Jensen has on his stomach. As much as that point of contact makes his heart skip beats—as much as his head sets itself reeling from the fact that Jensen's touching his stomach and _oh God, how is he doing that without being completely repulsed, I couldn't find all the flab that's hiding there but he probably will and he'll think it's gross and Jesus Christ, Jensen, can't you just kick me out and sent me back to bed_ —as much as it all makes Misha's skin squirm ever-so-slightly, he gives up. He nestles closer into Jensen's hold and tries to relax against him. He even kind of manages until Jensen has to go and ask him:

"Meesh… Look, I know what you've been telling everybody, and… okay, fine, maybe you've just been sick a little—or a lot, or… whatever kind of sick it is when Pad Thai makes you nauseated like that—but… Just between us? Because we're best friends and you know I love you?" He sighs and nuzzles at Misha's neck, at his hair, and either time's slowing down or Jensen's moving in slow-motion, because everything seems like it's dragging through molasses. "Meesh, are you okay? Like. I mean it. Are you okay?"

Misha wants to get huffy. Misha wants to have a temper tantrum. Misha wants to scream at Jensen, _How can you even fucking ask me that, you thick fuck? And I mean, "thick" like as in, "you're being an idiot right now, Ackles," not as in some crack about your weight because sure, you're heavy, but you're gorgeous and it isn't fair and seriously, though. How can you even fucking ask me that, Jensen? **How?** Look at me: do I **look** okay to you? I must not look okay, since people keep asking me if I am or not_

But all that comes out, when he responds, is a half-muttered, unadorned: "I'm fine, Jensen. Seriously." (Spitting out this lie is harder than it's ever been, even when it's just four words. And it scares Misha, how much he needs the lie to work—not just for anybody, but for Jensen specifically. It's terrifying, the extent to which his world would unsettle if Jensen doesn't believe him, if Jensen keeps thinking that there's something wrong.)

"Okay, well…" Jensen tightens his hold on Misha like this will really protect Misha from any threat he's dreaming up, jerking their bodies closer even though they don't really have much space left to close between them—Misha wonders if he ought to struggle or something, but even wriggling around proves more difficult than he bargained for. Jensen must be getting stronger, to keep up with how much Misha's worked out this summer. "Just," Jensen sighs against Misha's skin, and brushes his lips where Misha's spine starts curving, in a way that'd be a kiss if they were anybody else. "If you're ever not okay, you know you can talk to me, right? And I don't care what you need me to do, I'll do it. Swear to God."

_Don't you understand that I can't talk to you, though? Believe me, Jenny: I wish I fucking could. But I can't. This isn't something I can force you to deal with—I couldn't do that even if I deserved your help—it's just something I have to take care of by myself_ —Misha sighs. And nods. Keeps those thoughts stifled and squeezes Jensen's hand in some (probably misguided) attempt at reassuring him that everything's fine. "Well, right now? I need you to drop this like a hot potato and let me get some fucking sleep, but I can see that might be asking for too much…"

Jensen laughs at that, but it's small and something about it, something Misha can't quite finger, sounds forced. "I see your asshole facade's still working right," Jensen says in the way entirely unique to him. The way he can call any part of Misha an asshole and it sounds so _fond_. Not even remotely like an insult. "Good to know. No, I mean it, Misha—it really is good to know… 's reassuring."

There's another nuzzle at his neck, and Misha resolves to just keep his mouth shut—if he gets talking again, they might stay up all night, and he can't handle not having some sufficient sleep. Fortunately, the next words out of Jensen's mouth are, _sweet dreams, Princess. I'll most likely kill you in the morning_ , and throwing around _Princess Bride_ quotes is a good thing. It means that Misha's right and everything's fine, and as he settles down as Jensen's little spoon, Misha actually lets himself believe that he's heard the end of this insanity. That Jensen's going to listen to him and drop the subject.


	11. Can't you see my walls are crumbling?

But Jensen doesn't drop it—not that Misha can see, not when Misha asks him to, not even after their session of cuddling, and despite the nagging thought that Jensen (and Vicki, and Shepp) might be right, Misha doesn't stop to think about what he's doing, or what they have to say about it, or any reason why they might object to it. Nothing's as important as his thinness and maintaining it. The only thing that rivals this is making sure no one catches him being _strange_ , doing anything that might tip them off to problems that _aren't real_ —for this cause, Misha can handle all the ridiculous, compulsive things he does.

For instance, there's the way he has to check over his shoulder before taking any table in the cafeteria because Jensen, Shepp, and Vicki know his schedule, and they might sit down with him, then refuse to let Misha leave until they've watched him eat his entire salad, not just pick at it and push it around with his fork. Never mind that this only happens once—that's enough for Misha to fear it happening every day. Any time he wanders into the meal line, any time the cashiers swipe his student ID, his heart beats a little faster. His back stiffens, his lungs twist around inside his chest, and nothing calms down again until Misha looks _everywhere_ to make sure that _they_ aren't here to make his life Hell.

Then, there's the way Misha takes it upon himself to learn their schedules—an easy feat with his sister and Jensen, but now that Shepp's a graduate student, he gets to brag about having "more time off." He fails to explain, at first, that this means "more time to dedicate to working as Dr. Edlund's graduate assistant, not to mention harder classes and formulating that thesis he'll have to write in the next two years"—but it doesn't matter. Misha keeps meticulous track of Shepp's movements anyway, based both on Shepp's reports thereof and on Misha's own observations. As he scrawls down notes about when they have classes, or shifts at work, or plans with housemates, other friends, and the Lord-only-knows-who rapscallions Shepp hangs out with, Misha tells himself it's just a precaution.

Then, there's the way that he feels terrible—almost every day, Misha has at least one moment where he feels like everything's going to come crashing down around him, or like he'll pass out—but he drags himself through the motions. He walks to campus for his classes, flatly refuses any offers of a ride unless he _really_ thinks that he can't make it. He knows all the holes in his schedule where he can run off to the gym and (most likely) not be noticed—but all the way there, he checks around corners to make sure that no one's going to catch him and want to talk. Not that he has reason to fear seeing Vicki, Shepp, or Jensen there ( _unless they're spying on me_ )… but Danneel goes to the gym. And Danneel likes to talk.

And if she talks to Misha, then anything he says or anything that happens will inevitably get back to Jensen, who will, no doubt, pitch a fit like he did on move in day. Especially if she's witness to any of the times when Misha leans too much on the treadmill's support bars, or the times he wobbles off the elliptical like he's drunk, or the times when he takes way too long in the locker room because it's hard enough to avoid looking at the scale in there, but it takes fucking Herculean effort to resist the urge to go ask it for a consult—because the only fact that's on Misha's side right now is the one where, sure, he counts calories, skips meals, obsessively restricts his intake of everything, and works out too much given how little he eats… But he doesn't weigh himself constantly, like Mom would make him do, and he doesn't check the size of his waist as some weekly ritual, and despite how much he wants to put some kind of numbers on his life, he doesn't trust the thought that doing so will put an end to all his problems.

Not that this makes his behavior any better—not that he really expects it to do so, either. There's still all the evidence of how fucked up his head-space is. Worst of all (quite possibly), there's the way that Misha plasters on a bunch of fake smiles and tells everyone that everything's fine, even when they don't ask him, because really? Misha's telling himself this lie. He needs to hear it more than they do, anyway.

What he _should_ tell himself is that he only has so much energy, so many hours in the day, and that it's insane, the way he's going so out of his way on this—spending so much time deliberately trying to avoid the three most important people in his life-on-campus—actually trying to find excuses not to see his best friend and flatmate, his amicably split ex-boyfriend (and go-to dispenser of psychological advice, and the only ex who hasn't completely fucked off into God Only Knows Where—Shepp's in a small club, granted, but, out of Misha's two exes, he's distinguished himself by sticking around, the way he promised). More importantly, Misha looks for reasons not to see his goddamn _twin_ , all because of some voice in his head that tells him not to get near her because Vicki's going to tell him that things are wrong…

And it's insane. All of it is. Misha misses them—he misses being able to eat with them, being able to think about eating around other people—he wants to fling himself at Jensen, Shepp, and Vicki, word-vomit that he's been stupid, so fucking stupid, can they please forgive him and could they all just start again, forget that everything since the start of the semester's even happened and get back to normal, the way that things ought to be.

But whenever Misha raises these points with himself, whenever he reminds himself that no, really, his behavior isn't okay… Whenever he thinks _it's fine, I'll calm down and stop counting calories, or meals, or anything else, it's not a problem yet, or completely out-of-hand, so I can get a handle on it, still_ —inevitably, he'll stumble home and feel nauseated and find Jensen waiting at the kitchenette's table, with pizza or Chinese take-out or a pint of Phish Food that he spent his own money on because he knows it's Misha's favorite flavor—and all the little facts and figures from the summer come rushing back to him. How many calories the ice cream has, how many of those are from fat, how much refined sugar is in the average Chinese take-out joint's choice of noodles, how many different ways pizza can accidentally kill you…

And while Misha's just trying to breathe evenly and clear his head, the bullshit comes out of his mouth on its own: "No, Jenny, I appreciate it, but just… put the ice cream in the freezer for me, would you? My day _sucked_ , I can't even look at food-like anything right now or I'll fucking puke…" (Jensen puts the Ben and Jerry's away, as he's been asked, but Misha never goes to retrieve it.)

"Oh, shit—didn't I tell you I had a thing to go to after my library shift? I forgot didn't I? Dammit, I thought I brought it up—you didn't have to get pineapple on the pizza, you know that, right? I mean, I know it's my thing more than yours and now I just feel like an asshole because I already ate after work…" (This is a lie, and despite having taken an interest in and started flirting with her, Misha's not nearly comfortable enough around Kat to ask her to cover for him. They've barely been working together a week-and-a-half. He hasn't even had to tell her some story about why he can't meet her for lunch yet.)

"I just… I'm not really all that hungry right now is all, Jenny, okay?"

That's the worst lie of all, not least because it has absolutely no basis in reality. Misha's not just hungry: he's _starving_. Every time he throws that out into the kitchen, he clenches his hands into fists, digs his nails into his palms and waits for Jensen to call him out on the blatant falsehood, waits for his stomach to turn traitor and growl at Jensen to intervene and be reasonable since it's probably figured out that Misha won't, waits for his head to spin and the world to brown out around him as his knees give way…

But none of these things happen. They never happen. Jensen's smiles are always tight—he presses his lips into a line so thin that they almost disappear—Misha tries not to envy Jensen's lips for having that ability. He tries not to think about his stomach and the itchy sensation that crawls around inside it, feels like he's got rats skittering around in there—not to mention the way it flip-flops under Jensen's scrutinizing glances, which somehow, never manage to notice that Misha's _so fucking hungry_. That, in a very literal way, he's starving—that he barely eats _not_ because he's too busy or too stressed to remember, but because he intentionally avoids food.

He tries to focus on anything but his hunger and its side-effects, even how thick the air gets with tension, with all the things that he and Jensen _aren't saying_ … Misha wants to have anything else on his mind but all of this. _Anything else at all_ , as long as it's not the seriousness of the situation, or the way desire to bolt to his bedroom, loop the yellow tape-measure around his waist and make sure he hasn't slipped up and gotten bigger again. He tries not to forget how _stupid_ that fear is when, slowly but surely, he's taken his belt in another notch, felt his jeans start sagging on his hips.

Mostly, this avoidance leaves Misha staring at Jensen's lips, but even the thought of how much he wants to kiss them is better than running out of the room. How much Jensen has to _force_ the expressions is evident in how deep his dimples cut into his cheeks. _Any more strain there and you'd look like a serial killer, Jenny—maybe you want to chill out a little bit? It's not even you who's fucking sick here_ … Every time Jensen says well, okay, he'll put Misha's lo mein in the fridge for later, Misha's heart skips a beat—he expects Jensen to yell, or throw something, or break one of their plates on the floor, or fucking _something_. He expects Jensen to _fucking scream_ , not just nod and bite out some half-assed acceptance like _this is just the way things are_.

And after four weeks of lying, Misha's ready to _fucking scream_ himself. He never leaves his room without one of Grandma Krushnic's sweaters on, because they drown him out now, so no one can tell what his body really looks like. He's taken to wearing his bondage cuffs everywhere—on the one hand, the rabbit fur lining is warm, soft, and since _everything_ feels cold anymore, he'll take whatever warmth he can get; on the other, though, they're more than enough to keep his wrists hidden. To keep anyone from noticing the way his bones protrude. And even if his stomach refuses to out him as a liar, even if his knees wobble but don't do anything else, Misha stares Jensen down over the kitchen table and tries to _will him_ into picking up on how _not right_ everything's been since they moved in here.

_Jesus fucking CHRIST, you idiot_ , Misha wants to shout as loudly as this case of dry mouth will let him, _do you seriously think I'd be acting like this if everything was fucking FINE? Or are you just holding back because you think I'm too stupid to notice that I'm not okay? You know what I ate today, Jensen? Do you? I do—I wrote it down, and it was five Saltine crackers and a spoonful of peanut butter. At breakfast. All I've had since then is **water** , and even then, I can't drink too much because it just reminds me that I need food and I'm too fucking stupid to eat it. I'm not hungry, because I'm **starving** —I'm not tired, because I'm **exhausted** , because, in a very literal way, I am **running on empty** —because my body is, for seriously, **eating itself for fuel** and I'm just kind of going along with it because on some very fucked up level? **I'm proud of this—proud of all of it.** I'm sick, and I'm miserable, I'm stuck, I'm drowning, I'm starving and I can't stop myself from thinking that it's actually all okay just because I haven't purged recently, I need fucking help, and for fuck's sake, why won't you look at me close enough to notice this, you fucking jackass?_

But, for all the rant bubbles up inside him, Misha manages to cram a lid on it—he trembles, fussing with the hem of his sweater as his eyes drop to the floor, and as always, he whispers, "I'm just… I'm just not really hungry right now, okay, Jen? …I had a long day, and I'm tired, I just. …I think I really need to just go to bed early?"

He looks up in time to see Jensen nodding at him. Jensen doesn't _smile_ —at least, he doesn't force one—the expression he _does_ get is inscrutable. Half-smile, half-borderline plea, all knotted brows and licking his lips in concern—concern that permeates every syllable as Jensen says, "yeah, sure… okay, Meesh, I'll stick it in the fridge for you, just… sleep well, okay?"

 

All things considered, Misha should know better than to trust the calm before the storm. It's not much of a calm—he certainly doesn't sleep well, anyway—but he still gets it into his head that maybe, everything's just going to blow over. He stumbles through a Saturday morning shower in a haze of similar thoughts, trying to just shampoo his hair without ending up slouched against the wall or clinging to the towel rack, not to mention without feeling his stomach lurch like he's going to puke, because this is _clearly_ the best way to remind him that it's empty.

Making it through gives Misha some perverse kind of hope, and as he towels off, he falls right back into thinking that maybe, this is going to be okay. Maybe no one's noticed or said anything about how "sick" he (thinks he) is because he's not that sick—he's possessed of some sick need for attention, sure, but he's only blowing this fake, completely-in-his-head, made up "illness" out of proportion. Anorexics are supposed to lose their hair, and Misha's is fine: no clumps coming out as he attacks his head with a towel; when he emulates a dog, he only shakes off excess water.

Not that he's actually anorexic, so maybe that doesn't count. Throwing up on purpose is in the diagnostic criteria for bulimia, not anorexia nervosa. Plus, Misha probably eats too much—probably weighs too much—to be any kind of for reals disorder. Sure, Misha _knows_ that ED-NOS is a for reals eating disorder, and he knows that it hits too close to home for him to ignore, but he's not ED-NOS. He can't be ED-NOS. The only person who's ever used the phrase "ED-NOS" about him was Richard, and fuck Richard.

Fuck Richard _repeatedly_ even. Not in the good way. Misha doesn't have an eating disorder. He knows that he doesn't, that everyone who seems to think otherwise is delusional—he knows that he's still too big to be that sick—but if he _did_ have some disorder, he would name it Richard. Because Richard made Misha vulnerable and contented and prone to slipping up. Because Richard made Misha love him and hope for more than he deserved. Because Richard fucking disappeared, with hints as to why but no goddamn explanation, and to Hell with good behavior and promises to still be friends and not go ripping the support system rug out from under Misha's entire fucking life. Richard's promises were fucking shit and Misha just wants to hate that dick right now.

Misha wants Richard to be here so he can chew the bastard out for fucking him over like this, but since Richard's not here—and since, if he were here, the yelling would probably turn into crying, then begging, then angry-upset-desperate, "please come back and stay this time, you have no idea how much I fucking miss you" rutting at each other, if not outright fucking—hating him long-distance will have to do. Part of that means invalidating his stupid fucking opinions.

Besides, Richard thought Misha was skinny when he weighed in at one-seventy-five—Misha has plenty of words for how he looked at that point, and none of them are "skinny." He's skinny _now_ , sure. He's definitely skinny now, if only barely. Even without being able to see past the condensation on the mirror, Misha can admit that, take pride in it. He's thin; he worked _hard_ to get that back. Most of his clothes are baggy, but they weren't exactly _fitted_ even before he dropped all the weight he put on while his busted leg had him holed up.

Even if maybe he's not as skinny as he wants to think, Misha can knot a towel around his waist and not have it slip off to the floor, these days. That _has_ to count for something.

There's nothing _wrong_ with just being concerned with his appearance and his health, or so he tells himself as he wets down his toothbrush, hopes the explosive mint flavor of the toothpaste will get rid of the acidic taste in his mouth, the one pointedly hanging around, even though Misha's seen uncooked microwave ramen that had more moisture than his mouth right now—Sure, he can admit that he's been overdoing things a little bit, but it's just a side-effect of being around Mom for too long. Otherwise, though, he's just health-conscious. Perhaps a little self-conscious. But nothing to write home about…

By way of counting down how long he spends brushing his teeth, Misha takes to humming "Part of Your World"—he goes through three repetitions of it, just to make sure his mouth's as clean as he needs it to be, make sure that he's not going to get any more of this bullshit taste like his saliva's trying to erode his teeth and tongue. He thinks about compromising, trying to play mediator between the part of him that's crazy and the part that's more or less reasonable. Maybe, he'll get to go back to his original plan and call that that. Maybe it's enough to just cut himself a little bit of slack—not much, but enough to get through a Star Trek marathon with Jensen and eat the Ben and Jerry's waiting for him in the freezer…

_I just wanted to shout at Jensen because I'm an attention-whore, and everything's going to be fine, and I can get a handle on this without anybody else sticking their noses in because I'm fine, I'm **fine** , really, I am, there's no reason to worry about anything at all—_

Which is exactly when he wipes off a spot of mirror and sees Jensen leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest and face set in an expression Misha wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.

Misha can't even spend too long appreciating the differences in their physiques, the juxtaposition of soft, pudgy, not-quite-fat but definitely round-around-the-edges Jensen standing in the background while, in the foreground, Misha has sharp angles to his cheeks, visible notches in his shoulders, a collarbone that protrudes so far, it collected water in the shower— _Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, eat your heart out… Seriously, all this thing needs is to be in high-contrast monochrome and it'd be straight the fuck out of **Persona** or **8 ½** …_

But there's no film studies paper to be written, here—just Jensen glaring at Misha in the mirror—just the nagging itch underneath Misha's skin that he knows he's only getting because he's about to be confronted with the fact that he's spent four weeks lying his ass off to the three people most likely to kick his teeth in for doing anything to enable his self-destructive ideas… He sighs, slouches, puts his palms down on the counter to keep himself vaguely upright, and just tries to steer the conversation in some kind of direction that _doesn't_ involve any so-called problems of his. Because assuming that this is what Jensen wants cues up Misha's mental track of Mom's favorite old adage ( _"When you assume anything, all you do is make an **ass** of **you** and **me** …"_)—but it also doesn't seem unreasonable.

Not least since Jensen's eyes are trying to bore holes in the back of Misha's head. Besides, he has to have some kind of _reason_ for standing by the scale— _God, why the fuck do I just **know** where that stupid thing is? It's not like that's important enough to remember… How can I even try to pretend that's fucking normal? What the Hell is **wrong** with me—_

Since there's no room for that line of thought though, Misha tries to be himself. As much as the Misha-Collins-to-The-Rest-Of-The-World facade constitutes "himself," anyway. He tries to ask how Jensen slept, and if everything's going alright so far today, and if Jensen has any plans because Misha really doesn't aside from working on his term paper for Edlund's class since it's _imperative_ that he impresses that guy, and if they're going to make a habit out of sharing the bathroom around each other's showers because if so he really wishes he'd been consulted on that first—

"Are you just gonna beat around the bush, Meesh?" Jensen finally interjects (in a voice that's so… not what Misha expects to hear, not least because it's soft and concerned and, on some level, he thinks Jensen ought to be yelling at him, considering the situation—considering that, after weeks of expertly hiding his body from everyone, Misha's only wearing a towel and this has to be some kind of surprise for Jensen). "What I mean is," Jensen sighs, "are we just gonna talk about nothing? Or is this all building up to the elephant in the room?"

"Only if the elephant's pink…?" _Christ, I need some fucking coffee—that didn't even make sense…_ Misha sighs, shakes his head, tries to cover his ass with the world's most cocked up excuse, just because it's the first thing to come to mind: "Sorry, Jenny, I just… I don't really know what you're talking about."

"I think you do," Jensen says—he doesn't move from the wall, his tone stays even and soft, the vocal equivalent of him caressing Misha's cheek. "And, you know… I'm kind of sick of the elephant being around? He stinks and takes up a lot of space, and I'd kinda like to start talking about it and make him clear the fuck out?"

"I think the metaphor's getting sort of lost in the specifics…" is all Misha manages to get out before a hand wraps around his shoulder, before he finds himself facing Jensen and at a complete loss for words.

He puts his palms back on the counter, because even if he doesn't need balance, he needs to cling to something that won't judge him for being as skinny as he is. He tries opening his mouth to say something, anything—but nothing comes out; he just ends up staring at Jensen and waiting for him to move on to whatever's coming next. A punch in the mouth, a smack across the face—Misha probably deserves both of those or worse.

Instead, Jensen keeps his hand on Misha's shoulder—struggling for words himself, he resorts to patting Misha there, then on the upper arm—until finally, with his eyes on the floor (or, worse, maybe they're on Misha's stomach), he admits, "…we're not alone. …In the whole apartment, I mean." And he tries to leave that as enough, but Misha gapes at him. Misha's eyes go wide—and, apparently, that's all the emotional manipulation he needs to explain, "Mark and Vicki are waiting out in the kitchen. For you—well, technically, kind of for us, but… I'm just supposed to be getting you, they're _really_ here for you…"

_Fuck. my. life._ "They know it's not my birthday, right?" Misha stifles a groan, runs his hand back through his heavy, sopping hair. It's not even the sense that everything's going to go to Hell in a handbasket—it's the fact that his ability to bullshit is _so. goddamn. broken_ right now—he should be able to come up with some better distraction tactic than _this_. But he keeps right on going with it: "I mean, I could give Shepp a pass, but not Vicki, since it's her birthday, too—hey, what—hey!"

Jensen grips onto Misha's wrist and jerks it up—he only lets go to move his hand down Misha's arm, so he can get a proper look at the bone straining against Misha's skin, and at how easily Jensen can wrap his hand around it. " _This_?" he says. "Meesh, this is a fucking _problem_."

"I know," Misha says quietly—not quite whispering, but probably making Jensen strain to hear him—and he doesn't do it intentionally, he thinks, but there's still the chill that courses down his spine to deal with, and the feeling of lead dropping into his stomach, and the sense that he's doing something that's wrong enough to send him to Shepherd Book's Special Hell, the one reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theatre.

"Maybe you don't believe me—and Jen, I swear to God, I don't blame you for that, if you think I'm lying—I wouldn't believe me either—but… I _know_ it's a problem."

Swallowing thickly, he finds it too hard to keep holding eye-contact with Jensen, and when Misha turns his gaze away, he doesn't get much relief. More like, he gets a long glimpse of Jensen's stomach—not too big (at least, it looks like it's been bigger), but round, and soft, pudgy enough to strain against his t-shirt, not to mention the fits and the conniptions its existence sends Danneel into, as though it's any of her fucking business. And on its own, that might be nice, but Misha can't ignore his own midsection, or the way it looks next to Jensen's—there's the sharp, inward curve around his waist; there's the lack of any substance around his hips; and, though Misha tries to ignore them all, there's the curve of his ribs, the drop from the bottom of their cage to his stomach, and Jensen's free hand ghosting down his side, Jensen's fingers nestling between the bones by way of emphasizing the fact that they _can_.

"'s not that I don't believe you, because you know what? I want to—I really, really do. But…" He sighs. Takes his hand off Misha's side and uses it to nudge his chin up, so they can make eye contact again. "In four weeks, I don't think you've had more than four or five meals with me—and considering we live together?"

"It's not good, and you're worried, and Shepp and Vicki are worried too, which is why they're here, right?" Misha rattles that off, waits for an answer—something more than the nod Jensen gives him, anyway—but when Jensen goes quiet for too long, Misha keeps talking: "Am I… Do I have to admit to _everything_ I've been doing, or is it, like… more of an, 'admit you have a problem and agree to kind of fix it' situation."

Jensen shakes his head. "A little bit of both? …Shepp said we don't need to know everything you've done to yourself, at least not yet, because it's like… really early in the discussion and he doesn't want to risk fucking this up, I mean—fucking _you_ up, more importantly? …but he did tell me to get how much you weigh out of you, so…?"

"So I don't know—" Misha starts, only to find himself cut off with all kinds of Shepp said this, and Shepp said that, and Shepp's been reading about eating disorders, so he knows his shit—"Shepp's treating me like some kind of porcelain doll and making assumptions he has no fucking right to make, is what he's _doing_."

Misha huffs. Shakes his head. Vaguely wonders if Jensen's really gotten thinner, or if it's just his hunger playing tricks on him. Tries (and fails) to pull his arm out of Jensen's grasp. Falls back into sitting on the counter, perching just so he doesn't topple into the sink—for good measure, struggles for control of his arm again, and finally makes Jensen let him go. "Look, I mean… maybe he'd be right with someone else in my position, but he's not right about me, Jenny. I don't… I do all kinds of other shit, okay, I admit it—"

"In a really vague way that doesn't actually explain jack-squat—"

"Hey, do you want me to explain this fucking thing or not?"

Jensen sighs. Apologizes. And bids Misha to please, go on.

He waits a moment to do so, mock-pouting and just willing Jensen to feel guilty for interrupting him when this is supposed to be A Very Serious Moment—but, with his own sigh, Misha continues: "I keep track of all kinds of things, I do—but I will swear to God, or whoever else, and I'll swear it on whatever you want me to swear, at that—just. …I swear, I honestly haven't been on a scale since the morning of move-in day, and I." He pauses. Licks his lips. Has to choke out the admission, "I lied to you about how much I weighed, then."

"Yeah, well, I figured one-fifty-five was low-balling it by, like… a _lot_." Jensen returns to crossing his arms over his chest, and for a moment, Misha wishes that he'd just look _angry_ or _sad_ or something other than _So Tired And Disappointed In Everything_ —"You wanna put a better number on it, or do I have to coerce it out of you?"

"One-forty-seven," Misha whispers, and closes his eyes, since looking down—having to acknowledge how much thinner he is than Jensen and how _not okay_ his body looks—would be about as bad as it was before. If not worse, just because getting rid of the build-up of Things That Haven't Gotten Said does nothing to settle Misha's stomach, make him feel less on the verge of upchucking everything he hasn't eaten. "I swear, I was only down to one-forty-seven, and it wasn't as bad as it sounds—it was just…"

He pauses again— _It was just that my mother refused to help us with the money part of getting this place unless I dropped forty pounds, but then she changed the deal and it was fifty pounds I had to lose, and I didn't trust her not to change her mind again, not when she wouldn't shut up about how fat I still was when I was doing my goddamned best, but then I found out she sent the first six months' rent in without me finishing up and it was like she didn't think I could do anything at all, so… I lost fifty-five pounds, and I swear to God, it fucking sucked, I hated every stupid minute of it, I wanted to stop, but I couldn't until she said I looked thin. And then I just wanted to stay that way, so she wouldn't have any reason to call me fucking fat again_ —fucking Hell and sweet, zombie Jesus, he can't tell Jensen that.

Sure, Misha wants to just spill his guts, and get a hug, and have Jensen tell him that everything's going to be alright—but he can't tell Jensen _any_ of that. Jensen's too nice and too morally upstanding to let any of that go without comment… Misha sighs and shakes his head. "One-forty-seven's good enough for Shepp, right? I mean. It's honest—I have evidence of it and everything—I mean, if a phone-camera picture of the scale at my parents' counts as evidence… so, I'm not making it up or low-balling just to make the situation sound any better, or anything like that…"

"It'd be enough for me, Meesh, I swear it would, but Shepp said…" His hand ends up back on Misha's upper arm, leaving Misha to stiffen up and hope against all reason that he's wrong in expecting everything to go to Hell. Unfortunately, Jensen says exactly what Misha didn't want him to: "It's not that _he_ doesn't trust you, or that Vicki doesn't, or anything like that—they just… it's something about the diagnostic criteria or whatever-the-Hell? And—"

"It's part of the diagnostic criteria of anorexia." _Mark Sheppard, I swear to God, if it's the last thing I do, I will fucking THROTTLE you for getting this idea in your head and putting it into Jensen's without even bothering to explain it properly, and now he thinks I'm probably dying of some Victorian novel wasting girl disease, not just sick in the fucking head_ —with a pause, trying to search for the words he needs, Misha looks up into Jensen's knotted brow, and his wide, confused eyes.

Misha sighs. "Jen, it's… the. The DSM— _Diagnostics and Statistics Manual_? It's like an encyclopedia of how to tell who has what disorders by professional psychiatric standards—"

"So what's it got in there about anorexia that Shepp's worried about?"

Misha doesn't want to sigh again—Christ's sakes, he sounds like a teapot, with all the sighing he's done. He doesn't want to have to take a deep breath, close his eyes, and count to ten—but… doing so makes it easier to say, "To get a for real diagnosis of it, someone's… they have to weigh less than a certain amount—unless they're _clinically_ underweight, then it doesn't count. They can have all the symptoms, like right up to girls not getting their periods and… just doesn't matter. They're not _technically_ anorexic because the book says so."

The furrows in Jensen's brow get deeper and, for a moment, every part of Misha expects that the next words in this conversation are going to be some version of, _so wait, why the fuck do you know this?_ Or something else to put him on the spot, make him come clean about _everything_ he's kept under wraps since before he even knew that Jensen existed… Instead, Jensen just asks, "I mean… that's kind of fucked up, though, isn't it? I mean… if someone has all of the symptoms _except_ for that one… doesn't it mean they're—and, like, what happens to them _then_? Do they just not get help or anything?"

Misha shrugs, can't look at Jensen anymore and, since looking at the space between them's an even worse idea, turns his eyes to the bathmat. "So far as I know, Jen? They just get lumped into the 'ED-NOS' diagnosis—that is, 'eating disorder not otherwise specified'—and… I mean, even getting that requires them to be seeing a doctor in the first place? Which they might not be, if they're not _super-skinny_ , or if they don't have someone who might actually notice, and as for anyone who's overweight, well… I mean. Would _you_ believe it if a fat girl told you she had an eating disorder?"

Jensen doesn't have to answer that, because Misha already knows the truth: there is almost no one—certainly no one in their right mind, coming out of the world they've grown up in—who would believe that hypothetical girl.

 

"No one's here to judge you, Misha…"

He folds his hands on the kitchen table and he nods, but all he's thinking is, _Of course not, Shepp. You made Jensen charge in on my shower, made him spy on me and figure out all the weight loss I've been hiding, and my weight, and then you didn't tell him anything he really needed to know, just flung a bunch of words at him, and no, no, you're **really** not here to judge me._

Opposite him, Shepp sits at the head of the table like he's the fucking Godfather—and Vicki's standing behind his chair with one hip cocked out and her arms folded across her chest, wearing the I'm Not Mad, But I'm Very Disappointed frown. Jensen's behind Misha, hands on his shoulders and rubbing at some knots in Misha's muscles, the ones his body hasn't eaten yet, and thank God for Jensen. Even if he's worming around, finding more evidence of just how thin Misha is underneath his t-shirt in the sharp angles of his shoulder-blades, Jensen's care is better than Misha's had anywhere near his body in months.

"…it's just a matter of love, and concern—we're here out of worrying about you, really—and worrying about how thin you've gotten, to say nothing about the measures we suspect you've taken to get here—"

"Shepp, can we just… skip the intervention speech?" Misha sighs and digs his thumbs at the bridge of his nose. "Blah blah, I'm hurting myself. Yadda yadda more blah, you just wish I'd stop or at least explain why because you all love me so much and I need help. Et cetera, et cetera, if I don't, then you'll be forced to take action… It's tired. It's boring. Just cut to the insults and the analyzing me and… all of the actually interesting parts? _Please_?"

"No one wants to insult you," Vicki drawls, pointedly arching her eyebrows. "But we _can_ if you keep trying to tap-dance around the issue instead of dealing with it."

"Okay, how's this for tap-dancing? I didn't pay Jensen to lie to you about my weight—I didn't even try because I _know_ there's nothing I could give him to do that. It is exactly…" Misha points back at Jensen, who parrots _one-thirty-nine_ without missing a beat. "And, no lying, it was really one-forty-seven at the start of term, so I've only lost eight pounds since the start of term—"

"Listen to how he says this," Shepp drawls, pointedly glancing up at her, running back to sarcasm like he always does (purportedly, only when it helps him make a point to Misha). Passive-aggressively talking like he's narrating the Animal Planet documentary of this whole bullshit intervention and Misha can't hear him. "No, but really listen to him, Vicki, darling—it's magnificent, the amount of false ignorance going on here. He's saying, 'only eight pounds,' like he has no concern whatsoever for what this means relative to his actual body mass—or lack thereof, I should say."

"Fuck you, Mark," Misha snaps. Using his real name ought to make the bastard take this stupid situation seriously—take _Misha_ seriously. "I swear to _God_ that I didn't intend to lose any more weight—"

"Don't complain about people condescending to you, then turn around and do it back to us, brother." Vicki's expression sours—like she sucked on a lemon and caught a whiff of rotting garbage at once—and she bristles, rolling her shoulders, standing up straighter, shaking out her hair. "I'm fairly certain that everyone here has witnessed at least one of your stunts. Heard some kind of lie about eating earlier or why you can't eat now. Or then there's Danneel, who has reliably informed us that she's seen you at the gym… how many times, Mark."

This is not a question. Everyone at the table knows that it is not a question. And, in kind, Mark replies with a shrug, an _oh look at how casual I'm being about this_ sigh, and says, "Oh, somewhere to the tune of every time that she's been there herself—plus some handful of other incidents that she heard about from Sandy… I believe it all adds up to getting a semester's worth of physical education credit in the space of four weeks, when everything's accounted for."

"Those credits are such bullshit anyway," Misha huffs. "They don't actually count for anything."

"Take it up with the Dean," Vicki snaps. "And do it some time when we're not in the middle of trying to smack some sense into you."

"I don't _need_ any more sense smacked into me. I kind of think this whole stupid incident's done that enough, don't you."

" _Has it?_ Has it _really_ gotten through to you? Because… after this summer…" She's got ice in her voice—ice and the explosive fire of a volcano, to say nothing of the sparks in her eyes—and he can tell she wants to tell the whole sordid tale of Mom's diet, and Misha going along with it, and Dad and Vicki being right about how unhealthy it was the whole time.

Misha wants to ask her why she has to be so mean—wants to tell her that it's not even about being fat anymore, because he knows that he's not; it's just the only control, the only _choice_ , he had left, and it wasn't much of one because it's like one of his worst compulsions and he'll die if he doesn't listen. This trail of thoughts just twists a bunch of knives up in his chest, though. Makes him feel like trash for even considering telling his friend anything.

Swallowing thickly, feeling that too-familiar desiccation in his whole mouth and throat, his stomach growls. Turns. Reminds Misha that he should be angry, not repentant—he wants to scream at Vicki, even more than he wants to scream at Mark and Jensen. He wants to snap that maybe this wouldn't have fucking happened in the first place if she'd just been his sister months ago, when he was first putting on weight, instead of dismissing him, telling him he was stupid and worrying too much—

But all the words fly out of his head when he looks back up at her. Sees the lines of concern digging themselves into Vicki's forehead and the tears welling up in her eyes.

"Vicki… please don't, I…" Misha sighs, lets his head loll forward and, once again, feels like the _worst fucking person in the world_. (It's about the only moniker that makes sense, considering what he's putting these people—the three people he loves most in the world—through with this… whatever it is.) "Please don't cry, Vicki… please…" _It's making me feel like shit and I hate myself enough already._

Even with that blaring in the back of his mind, even with the hot, stinging feeling in his own eyes, even with how heavy his head suddenly feels, Misha manages to lift it up and look at her. Look her in the eyes on top of that and hold that contact. Because she's his sister, and he _needs_ her to know that he isn't lying to her when he says: "I know that I'm sick, okay? I know I'm sick, I know it's a problem and it's not okay, and…" Sighs. "You have no idea how long I've known this, and I just… I want to get better."

He's probably not supposed to feel like he shouldn't say this.

He's probably not supposed to feel this pang in his chest, the way he used to feel when he was still with Richard and so much as _looked_ at Jensen. Or like how he feels when he looks at something he actually likes to eat.

He's probably not supposed to feel like he's cheating on someone important.

He's probably not supposed to see the wary glance that Mark and Vicki trade, but he does, and it's like remembering how to speak again: "I've been so… You guys have _no idea_ what this is like, okay? What I've been going through here… It's just. I know it's sick. I know you don't believe me, I don't think I'd believe me if I were in your shoes, but I didn't mean for… I thought I'd feel—I don't even know, I didn't think that—I thought everything would be okay if I just…"

Silence rolls in—Misha has all the words that he needs but it's like they're getting trapped in his throat, like that cheating feeling is for real and he can't talk anymore or he'll get someone hurt—he only gasps. Groans under Jensen's hands (they find a particularly bad knot, just off of Misha's spine—Misha didn't even know it was there, and now it hurts like a mother-fucker). Sighs when Jensen tells him, "It's okay, Meesh. Well… Maybe it's not right now, but it's gonna be, okay?"

"I thought," Misha huffs right off, because it's painful to make Jensen have to say that kind of shit. No one should have to fucking say it to Misha, least of all Jensen, and knowing that he's the reason Jensen has to do this? Fucking kills. Misha shakes his head as he says to the kitchen table (in a voice so small, his neck itches with the shame of it), "I thought everything would be okay if I… I needed control, and I needed to be… I just thought… Getting skinny was supposed to make everything _better_ …"

Knowing he's said this smacks Misha, then kicks him in the stomach to go with it, and the only reason he doesn't start trying to pretend he's somewhere else is that, for a moment, Jensen's hands clench on his shoulders hard enough to hurt. He looks up at Vicki and she's gone white. God fucking dammit, Misha's really made a mess of things—and what he hopes doesn't get thrown around as a possibility is exactly what Mark has to say next: "Everyone here wants what's best for you, Misha—and we're all going to help you as much as we can—but… It might not be a bad idea to consider going to health services—"

"No."

"And, if one of their counselors recommends it, taking a leave of absence for health reasons—"

" _No_ …"

"Which, despite what you might think, won't be held against you or your academic record, because your health is important—"

" _No_ —"

"It wouldn't be anything too outrageous, either—just the rest of the semester, most likely. Possibly as much as next semester, pending an evaluation, and, if they think it's necessary—"

" _It's **not**_ —"

"Considering the possibility of seeking professional help from…" A sigh—the sort of sigh that's supposed to say Mark doesn't like this any more than Misha does. "From an inpatient treatment facility—"

"Goddammit, Mark, how many fucking times do I have to tell you _no_?!" Misha smacks the table—he has no idea how he has the strength for that, let alone the strength to make the noise he does—the one that shocks through the whole kitchen and makes Mark shut up. "I just… I don't want to talk to health services. I _definitely_ don't want to go to one of _those_ places—I don't need to go to one of those places, either… I definitely don't have the money for it, and they should save the spots they have for people who really need them."

Mark blinks at Misha for a moment, mouth hanging open. "Correct me if I'm wrong," he says with a sigh and an expression that suggests he feels like he's woken up in Bizarro World. "No, really, Misha, I mean it—correct me if I'm misinterpreting you at all, because I don't think I _am_ , but. Did you just follow up admitting that you're sick, and how low you've let your weight get, much less implying the measures you've taken to get here, by trying to tell us—and in all seriousness, besides—that you might not _really need_ professional help?"

Groaning, Misha slumps forward and hangs his head so far down that it stretches all the muscles in his neck. Rubs at the bridge of his nose, then his temples, as he says, "I'm not talking about me right now, jack-ass. I'm not trying to talk down my problem or act like it's not there. I'm just looking at this, like. I'm just… I'm trying to be _realistic_ about everything—"

"Ah, yes, because it's so realistic to imply that you're perfectly and entirely fine with no complications or issues or—"

"I _didn't fucking say that_ , Mark! It's just. …I'm not too weak to sit up. I'm not having heart palpitations or arrhythmias or anything else. I'm not anemic, probably, and I'm not losing my hair—shit, I'm not even underweight. Just kind of skinny." _Please don't ask me why I know that. Please don't ask me why I know that. Please don't ask me why I know that…_ "I admit that I have a problem. I want to get better. I will swear on my autographed photo of Nimoy to cooperate with you guys, if it'll help you any, but the simple fact of the matter here is that it could be a lot worse. _I_ could be doing a _lot worse_."

Misha gets that wobbly, fuzzy-headed feeling as he sits back up, scoots his chair closer to Jensen, leans back toward Jensen and his hands. "I have a _problem_ ," Misha admits, forcing himself to look Mark and Vicki in the eyes. "I know I do, I want to not have a problem—to get better… And I know I need some kind of help, but… There are still other people who need inpatient places more than I do."

Mark looks like he's going to say something, and to keep that from happening, Misha picks right back up: "And even if there weren't? Money's a problem." He combs his hand back through his hair and hopes to God this doesn't sound like total bullshit to everybody else. "Even if we were going to get my parents involved—and I swear to God, I will _castrate you with my bare hands_ if you so much as try—even if the insurance, just… Most treatment is _expensive_. Most insurance plans won't cover treating anyone like me—anyone who's not clearly disordered, or obviously anorexic in the clinical sense, and it's fraud for doctors to lie, so like…"

There's a brief flash of a moment, in which Misha thinks that, maybe, what he wants to say hits too far below the belt. But then he remembers that he doesn't have the space or fortitude to give a shit right now: "Unless you _want_ me to get down to, like, one-twenty-five just so they'll diagnose me as anorexic and the insurance will have to cover treatment? And I might kill you if you want me to do that because, _fuck that, I want to fucking stop **now**_ —and losing another fifteen pounds just sounds like _Hell_ —"

"I don't want to have it seem like I'm—at the risk of enabling whatever's going on in my brother's wormy little brain right now…" Vicki sighs, looks away from Misha and over to Mark. "Unfortunately, Misha has a point. Several, in fact—and the fact that we don't have to look into involuntarily committing him to get an admission says a lot of positive things about the state he's in. About how likely we are to actually get that cooperation out of him, swearing on Commander Spock or not—"

"It also says that he could be manipulating us into thinking just that so we'll ease up on him. Telling us what we want to hear, so—"

"Yeah, I'm going to seriously admit that I haven't eaten since Thursday—Thursday morning, at that, and how we're probably even past the forty-eight-hour mark—and then have some… Deep, awesome insight into _what you want to hear_ —" Misha cuts himself off, sighing as he slumps back, leans into Jensen and stares at the ceiling (which is making more sense than Mark is, at the moment). "I mean, Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Mark. I barely slept last night, I have a headache, I feel like shit—no doubt because I _haven't eaten since Thursday_ —and you're making me sit through this bullshit intervention without my fucking coffee. I don't think I'd know what to do at red light right now, so how the _ever-living fuck_ am I supposed to be playing you all like a violin?"

"By giving us enough truth to compensate for the lies," Mark says, licking at his teeth. "Because, contrary to what you seem to think about yourself, you, Misha Collins, are dangerously intelligent and creative, and… In all due fairness, that's usually one of the reasons why I like you so much—but at the moment? I don't trust it. At the _moment_? You're sick, so I'll grant that it's not entirely your fault, but it's so much worse if you're not recognizing it—"

"So tell me what I have to do, then," Misha snaps. "What do I have to do to convince you that I'm on your side? Just… fucking tell me what to fucking do and I'll do it."

Mark sighs, but doesn't say anything until Misha looks back over at him. Even then, it's just some stammered syllables, to start with—and finally, Mark just says, "Well, personally… and I'm speaking only for myself, here, not for Vicki or for Jensen—but I will consider myself satisfied if you tell us everything. Admit it all so that we know what we're dealing with, and what we have to do to help… do you think that you could handle that, Misha?"

Misha's not sure, not even when Jensen and Vicki agree that they're with Mark on this count and they just want to hear him tell it in his own words—but even admitting to that uncertainty, Misha supposes that he can manage it. In the interests of cooperation and all that jazz. "And because I really am sorry," he tacks onto the end, mumbling more to the table and just hoping that they can hear him. "For lying to you guys as much as I have, and… I don't know. Whether you believe it or not, I _am_ sorry, so… y'know. There's that."

For whatever the fuck that's worth. Misha's pretty sure Canadian pennies have more value than his words right now.


	12. It's an ache I still remember.

His friends seem to believe him, thought, which encourages Misha, at least until he has to tell the truth, the whole truth, every last wormy little inch of the truth.

Until he has to expose himself, strip away everything until he feels like he'd rather just get naked and let someone take photo evidence of his bones tugging at his skin and showing through. Which is how everything finally collapses—all of the walls and lies that Misha's hidden behind—how everything crumbles and slips through his fingers. Burns up to ashes and falls down around Misha's shoulders and barely leaves enough rubble for Misha to start reconstructing everything. Building everything back up with new lies and new walls—not that he can put too much effort into that, right now.

Thing is, lying would take energy. Clear-headedness. An ability to cover tracks and pull explanations out of hats that Misha doesn't have right now. Doesn't even manage to get his hands on after Vicki pushes Mark to give Misha some space to breathe, just a few interrogation-free minutes while she makes some coffee—"Because you've got a point about needing your caffeine hook-up. Not that this gets you out of eating something, too," she says before motioning at Jensen, telling him to find and whip up something, anything, that Misha will eat without getting too anxious and clamming up on them.

Not even the little bowl of instant oatmeal that Misha ends up stomaching helps him get his head together all that much—he doesn't get half of it down before he starts to feel _huge_ , and by the time he finishes (which he only manages because Jensen and Vicki won't stop looking at him like they're going to cry), Misha's anxieties have turned from, _I can't gain weight, shit shit, fuck, I know this is a safe food, mostly, but what if it makes me get fat again anyway, what if I gain weight, I can't…_ to, _Great, I'm going to end up in the emergency room with internal bleeding now and Handsome Nurse Sebastian's going to be two steps from a sexual harassment lawsuit the whole time, because fuck everything, there's no way in Hell that didn't rip my stomach in fucking half_.

Misha can't get his head on right because this whole fucking thing was supposed to be about choice. His choice. Making sure he got to have his choice. Fighting everybody because he thought they didn't respect his choice—and now? Misha doesn't even have that.

He does, he guesses. Sort of. At least, he has it in that he has a choice between getting better (which means gaining weight, which makes Misha's heart race like Seabiscuit, but it also means that he gets back some degree of privacy) and staying sick (which means skinny, like Misha's chased after, but also means that his friends and sister worry, his body deteriorates, his grades plummet—because, as Vicki points out, Misha's playing more than a little bit of Russian Roulette with his nervous system, at the moment—and eventually, he gets himself dragged to a hospital, then probably an inpatient center, and if he's not kicked out of school by then—an anxiety that hangs around, despite his friends' and sister's attempts at telling him that it will never happen—then his entire life will have gotten derailed).

But, aside from that? All of Misha's choices are gone. All he wanted was that choice, and now, he's pretty much fucked. Decidedly not in a good way, either. Misha doesn't get a choice in having to come clean about everything. He never expected that he would get that luxury, but the way it happens sets Misha's head reeling from the shock of it all.

There's a moment—a fairly extended one, but still, only a moment—when Mark, Jensen, and Vicki wander off to _discuss_ amongst themselves. Close Jensen's bedroom door and act like Misha can't hear them arguing—even while he sits alone at the table, sighing and fighting off the impulse to just take a nap right here, right now, mostly just staring at the wall because there's nothing else it occurs to him to do. The only thing that's left for him, when they have Mark say that Misha's going to tell them everything ( _yes, because it **really** helps to make me feel like I just made a deal with the DA on **Law and Order**_ ), is that Misha doesn't tell them every single last thing and they can't prove that he's, in some sense, full of shit.

He's mostly honest, sure. His back's against the wall and he doesn't want to make shit worse for himself. He doesn't want to keep lying to everyone like he has. To the same extent that he's gone, anyway. But, on the other hand, he _needs_ for everyone to keep thinking that he's fine. Fine enough to get out of going to rehab, or therapy, or anywhere else that's like a death sentence, anyway—so, Misha embellishes. Changes things around and leaves stuff out. Emphasizes certain things (usually without being _completely_ dishonest— _it's better that they don't know the extent of the calorie-counting and the working out and the fasting and the obsessing, just… it's easier for everybody, this way_ ), while ignoring certain others (because there's no way in Hell Misha can tell them about making himself throw up without getting everyone upset and making everything worse).

Misha doesn't get a choice in his subsequent wake-up call. He doesn't get a choice in being informed that the line has to be drawn here, and no further, because apparently, Mark thinks he looks like a walking Halloween decoration—which is, Vicki editorializes, not an indication of reality as much as it's Mark working out his own anxiety about the situation by trying to be funny.

"And failing," she says, "because his sense of humor is completely inappropriate, but let's not be invalidating anyone's perspective just because his ego defense mechanisms suck right now."

"His ego defense mechanisms meaning all but outright telling me that I'm currently on the same level as a Borg attack?" Misha deadpans, looking at Mark instead of Vicki, because he can't outright say, _**First Contact**? Fucking seriously? You couldn't even put this in the context of some Star Trek movie that I actually like?_

"You're not on the same level as a Borg attack," Mark says with a shrug. "Borg are infinitely less interesting and cooperative, and I don't have any vested interest in trying to help them."

Which is when Mark arches his eyebrows in Misha's general direction, nods at Jensen, and out of nowhere, Misha finds himself scooped up out of his seat. Held in Jensen's arms and, nothing against Jensen, flinging his arms around his best friend's shoulders just because Misha doesn't want to get dropped and fall on his ass. _The sick thing is I've had this dream before, complete with being skinny enough for you to carry me, except usually, it involved wedding dresses and a honeymoon in London—_ and any humiliating, romantic fantasies Misha's ever entertained never had any scenes of him getting carried down the hall to the elevator and around the block to the dumpster.

They also never featured Mark telling him how dangerous it is to keep the scale around, considering the degree of Misha's admitted obsessing, or Vicki tossing the thing into the trash, or Jensen getting put on the spot, asked if he thinks it's too easy to carry Misha around. And apparently, Misha doesn't get the choice of engaging with this bullshit or not—he slumps his head onto Jensen's shoulder, sighs and closes his eyes, thinks he could at least zone out, and at best take a nap—and before he gets too close to where he wants to be (or at least, too close to imagining that he's anywhere but here), someone flicks him on the forehead.

Whining, Misha blinks his eyes open and finds himself glaring up at Mark, who looks about as impressed as he'd be with a puppy that chewed up his shoes. "None of that, thank you much," Mark says with a huff. "You can take a nap when we're back inside— _this part_ , though, is important and you're not allowed to doze off for it. So stay awake."

Misha doesn't even get a choice in food, even when he can honestly say that he's not that hungry. All things considered, this shouldn't surprise him, but Misha still finds it the worst of everything that happens—he's been in control of food, of how much he eats and when, for months, and now, he just gets to spend the day listening to people tell him _might not be time to eat, you think?_ when they really mean that it's time to sit the Hell down and ingest something. Every few hours, it's the same story. Misha eats something tiny because he can't stomach that much more, and he tries not to comment on calories, or the nutritional information labels, or anything.

The closest he gets to what he really wants is that Vicki and Jensen _ask_ what he'd like to do for dinner. Not that it matters, when they shoot down Misha's first three suggestions— _Well, not that you'll listen, but I'm pretty full, so if we could just not do anything? …Okay, fine, how about the vegan health food place down by the chem building? …The place in Conifer with the huge salad bar?_ —but at least the vegan Thai place they wind up in isn't horribly unhealthy. Not like pizza or anything.

Still, Misha thinks he'd kill for a little privacy. Even just enough to get through a plate of tofu Pad Thai without three people watching him fucking eat.

 

"'m proud of you, you know."

Misha's curled up on Jensen's bed, slumped against the headboard and trying not to think about the fiasco that dinner turned into—and for all he's been able to (mostly) lose himself in his reading for Edlund's class, he has to shake himself around back into reality, even if only for a moment. Sighing, he looks over at Jensen, seated at his left-hand desk, the one for all his artsy drawing and inking stuff, and Misha tries to keep his eyes narrowed, his nose wrinkled… It just doesn't work out. Not least because Jensen leans back in his seat and away from whatever the Hell he's been working on since they got back, apparently insistent on giving Misha the sweetest, warmest, most earnest smile Misha's ever seen on a human face.

It's fucking cavity-inducing, that smile. Beautiful, like everything about Jensen is, but cavity-inducing and bright like a string of Christmas lights—and the fact that he loves it so much makes Misha stare up at the ceiling instead of at his best friend.

Still and all, though, Misha has to point out: "I barely ate anything before trying to give up. I called my sister a bitch, in public, because she kept trying to make me eat another spring roll when I didn't want one. I almost flipped the table and knocked into some waitress while trying to escape to the bathroom. And, as though all of _that_ weren't enough, Mark decided to accuse me of going to puke when, really, it was just that I've probably drunk all the tea in China and all the coffee in Costa Rica today, and I had to go to the fucking bathroom… so I decided that the best course of action was to shout that just because we've slept together doesn't mean he can turn me into some—how did I phrase it?"

"'Some goddamn Sigmund Freud case study in pink,'" Jensen says, and Misha looks down just in time to see his smile wobble a little. Somehow, Jensen manages to keep it up. "…Not one of your best, but Vicki and I thought it was pretty cute, and… I think what he _really_ objected to was, uh. The more graphic exposé of the sex you used to have? Y'know. In public and all."

Misha shrugs. "Anyway, all I'm getting at here is that… I mean. I'm not really proud of me? I think I'm probably, like… I don't know what I think I am, really—but I don't feel all that proud of me. I don't see how you _can_ …" Swallowing thickly, Misha can't meet Jensen's eyes anymore—can't handle hearing the way his voice cracks in his throat without having to watch Jensen react. "All I did was have a few bites of food and a temper tantrum."

Jensen sighs, and Misha can't decide whether he sounds sympathetic or just tired—either one could go terribly. "Okay, sure," Jensen admits. "It could've gone better, but… It could've gone a whole lot worse, too, and… we didn't get kicked out, Vicki gave the waitress a really nice tip—"

"So you're proud of me for not being a worst case scenario?" Misha wants to try and fight the whine that creaks out of his throat, but that would take energy he doesn't have right now. And dedication that he doesn't really feel like mustering. "For only dropping eight pounds instead of enough for Mark to get me committed or some shit—which, for the record, just in case you're, like, worried or whatever? It's still almost ten pounds off? And don't ask me how I know that, or _why_ , but like… You say you're _proud_ of me, so I'm supposed to guess that all of this is, like… a _good_ thing?"

Silence comes next—not a long one, but enough quiet time for Misha to groan, and thump his head against the headboard, and think that he might actually be a fucking idiot—if he's not an idiot, then… well. For all Misha doesn't want to give Richard's perspective any recognition or allow it any validity, at the moment, and for all he refuses to say that maybe Richard was right, maybe Sarah was right, maybe his fuck-head doctor was right, and maybe he has a goddamn eating disorder… _well_.

Maybe Misha shouldn't go that far, because that'd probably make things harder for people who are _really_ sick, and things are hard enough for the people who are _really_ sick without Misha making it all worse. Guys with eating disorders can't get recognition, can't get anything without being told they have a girls' disease. Girls with eating disorders can't get recognition either, because even if they fit the archetypes more blatantly, so many people in the world are stupid, or else they just don't care, or else.

But even if Misha doesn't have an eating disorder, even if he's not _properly_ sick, then he's definitely got a case of something that takes over and turns him into some dark, nasty little fucker when he's not paying attention. It's exactly like Richard said, except for Richard's pretensions of diagnosing him—Misha has moments of being too fucked up to help himself and he turns into a kind of monster. Something's got to be broken in him, if he's lashing out at Jensen, of all people. Lashing out at Jensen is like kicking a three-legged, one-eyed kitten that's standing out in the rain.

"'m sorry," Misha mumbles, closing his eyes and letting his head droop back again. "I can't… I'm not gonna say that I didn't mean that? Because I kind of did? But… not exactly like it came out, anyway. And it's not really me, I just…" _I'm just fucked up like a busted Slinky that's all tied in knots and, even if you get it unknotted, it's never gonna be a proper Slinky and flop down the stairs ever again._ "I know you're just trying to help…"

Jensen doesn't say anything at first, if mostly because he eases down next to Misha and ruffles his hair instead. And while Misha scrunches up his face and whines at this, Jensen says, "It's a good thing because you're not so far gone that… Just. I mean, you're, like. Helping. And wanting to get better. And not giving us all a bunch of crap or clamming up on us forever or anything… It's a good thing because you're kind of my best friend and color me selfish, but I'm pretty into you, like… not being dead? Or kind of on your way there… or beating yourself up all the time… Now, come on. Your eyes. Open them. I've got something to show you."

Misha sighs but doesn't let up until Jensen starts batting something against his nose—something pretty light, it feels like, and when Misha opens his eyes, he sees a couple sheets of paper that Jensen describes as his version of a 'get well soon' card. One that he wants to hope is nicer because he's sure the comic's not really all that witty or fun, but at least it's got heart, since he made it himself. One that he put together because he didn't want to buy some overpriced, tacky number from the Hallmark store, especially not when it wouldn't really capture how he feels, or the situation, because nobody makes cards that say things like, _you're the best friend I've ever had, please don't keep hurting yourself_.

…Except for Jensen, apparently. He's scribbled those words exactly on top of the last page out of four, right above an incredibly detailed drawing of two guys—one sort of chubby (even starting to edge into fat territory) and the other borderline emaciated—hugging. They're pretty blatantly supposed to be Jensen and Misha, albeit with hints of Jensen's fondness for drawing caricatures, and maybe the emotional impact would be more poignant if Misha hadn't skipped to the end of the comic right off the bat, but… He still has to pause. And blink at it. And wonder what the fuck he's feeling, because right about now, the only words that come to mind are _lilac_ and _fuzzy_ , and at least one of those _is not a damn feeling_.

The comic leading up to that last page definitely isn't all that funny, and Misha's not entirely sure why Jensen even thought to mention that as a possibility. But that doesn't mean it's not good. On the contrary, it's fantastic, artistically. Just looking at the style Jensen drew it in—how sure, it's not really _realistic_ , but it's not especially cartoony either; Jensen's found some happy. How the overall effect is grittier than Jensen's sequential art tends to be, with the heavy dark lines, the use of black and white for everything, and the shading instead of coloring. It's not just rectangular frames with pictures, either—some 'frames' barely have lines separating them from each other, Jensen's inserted several panels of nonstandard sizes or pieces that aren't in frames at all. One page looks more like a collage than a comic—Misha can't help smiling (just a small, private one) at seeing the influence of the graphic novels he gave Jensen last Christmas.

And Misha knows that he should try to focus on the story and the words instead of on the pictures, on appreciating Jensen's art on an aesthetic level—but the art makes Misha feel better than he's felt in… He doesn't even want to think about how long it's been since he felt this good. Vindication—that's what this is. Vindication, a bit of pride, some vicarious cheer because of how much Jensen's drawings have improved since freshman year… Jensen would've wound up on the arts track eventually, without Misha encouraging him to ignore his father's wishes (or without Misha pointing out that Jensen hates math and found all the introductory business classes boring—whatever's a more accurate description of what he did).

Jensen lives and breathes his artwork—that's obvious in the care that he's put into telling a short story whose message is just, _Misha, I'm worried about you; let me help; I don't know what's going on for you, but I don't like it and I only want you to be okay_ —and even if Misha's giving himself far too much credit here (as he knows he is), he can't _help_ it. He hasn't smiled nearly enough lately. So what if he's smiling because, in some small way, he had a hand in making Jensen happy? Bringing him together with the thing he's decided to dedicate his life to doing? And a smile is a smile, so Misha's going to let himself have this.

"Is that supposed to be me?" he says after a while without speaking, because he has no idea what else to say. All of his feelings are so close to the surface and, yet, Misha can't fathom them, much less consider discussing them with anybody. Even Jensen. _I can't put words on any of this, so how could I fucking discuss it?_ He waits just long enough for Jensen to shrug and nod at him, then huffs. Bats at Jensen's shoulder with the pages. "Come on, you asshole," Misha sighs, scooting and nudging around so he can lie down. "I'm not _that_ skinny."

_On some level? I still wish I was, or that I could ever hope to be, at least—but, fortunately or not, I don't have the determination or the tenacity to really stick with this. Not when it means making you and Vicki get so emotional. …And Mark, too, I guess. Because in case you haven't noticed, I have tons of numbers in my phone and only five people set to speed-dial—and one of those five has a number that hasn't worked since May. And one of the remaining four is my mother. So. Yeah, fine, I guess Mark can come, too._

"Well, you're pretty skinny," Jensen says, some mix of fondly and matter-of-factly. Out of the corner of his eye, Misha sees Jensen grab and pinch at what remains of his belly, jostle it around in his hands—it's hardly even that anymore; it's some pudge, sure, a little swell of a tummy, but not really a belly and definitely not as big as Jensen's ever been—for a moment, Misha gets a hot, twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he's not sure if it's arousal or guilt. Maybe it's a little bit of both—on the one hand, he's probably a really shit best friend for not even noticing that Jensen's been losing weight. For getting so wrapped up in himself that he didn't spot something that's obviously pretty important to _his best friend_.

On the other hand, though: Misha _wants_ —it's only now, in noticing how much he _wants_ , that Misha realizes how he hasn't _wanted_ for… Christ, it must be months, at this point. And everything feels new all over again, like he's fucking thirteen and he's going to get sick from how fast he gets hard and cums in his boxers—except that he doesn't _get_ hard. He should. He wants to, but it never happens, for which he should probably be grateful… It just feels so kind of really fucking wrong. And on the tentacle, Misha supposes that the specifics of this emotion don't really matter, since all of it's just a symptom of how well and thoroughly he's fucked himself up. Well. Probably. Misha's just assuming that everything's some kind of symptom, right now.

"You're _especially_ pretty skinny compared to me," Jensen huffs, jerking Misha out of his own head and back into reality. Chuckling a bit and shuffling around so he can lie down next to Misha. Once he's comfortable, he nudges well into Misha's personal space. Well past the point when anybody else, save maybe Mark and Vicki, would've gotten punched in the fucking mouth for getting too close. …Not that Misha could do any damage to anyone. He's not even making wet paper bags tremble, these days.

With a deep, heavy sigh, Misha sets the pages down with his book. He rolls over onto his side and props himself up on his elbow, resting his cheek on his palm, letting his eyes roam up and down Jensen's frame for a long moment before finally settling on his face—finally noticing that, while he's lost the least amount of weight there, his face has still thinned out some, gotten slightly less cherubic though no less gorgeous. _I could kiss you right now and it might just be the best thing ever. If you were into me. Which you're probably not._

"Well, if we're going with that kind of logic? Then your drawings of me need to be uglier, too," Misha says with a shrug. "In case you haven't noticed, Pretty Boy, I'm super-ugly compared to you. And so are most people, really. So what the Hell is up with you drawing your own face so lopsided, dork."

Jensen, for the first time since this morning, grins. And he reaches up to tweak Misha's nose. "Newsflash, you dick: the only thing you look ugly next to is like…" He pauses. Sighs. And in the back of his mind, Misha really wishes he could break Jensen's nose—that even if he had the physical strength, he could muster the emotional fortitude for it. It's just not fair for Jensen to go saying shit like that when he only ever means it in a purely platonic sense. "Y'know, I can't think of anything that makes you look hideous, because you're fucking hot."

_Well, actually, I'm fairly cold right now, but that's just in a temperature sense, and since you're trying to be helpful or something, I don't suppose you'd appreciate me missing the point on purpose._ Misha sighs and flops onto the mattress, nestles closer to Jensen still, until he's curling up against Jensen's side. "Well, then I look pretty ugly right now," he mutters and figures that it probably won't matter. "'ve had days where I didn't think I looked human."

"You don't look ugly." Jensen sighs like this is the single most tiring, hopeless conversation of his life. And it's about to get worse, because Misha's quite comfortable here, and since Jensen apparently wants to assault him with emotional honesty right now, he is _not_ moving. It's Jensen's turn to flop around and readjust himself for Misha's benefit. And once he does, he fixes those _goddamn why must you be so fucking perfect_ green eyes of his on Misha. Pauses a moment so he can brush some stray hair off of Misha's face. (For his own part, Misha flinches. Not like he means to do it, but… Jensen's so tender. His touch is so gentle. And there's some part of Misha's head—some very, very loud part—screaming that Misha doesn't deserve such kindness. Not even for this one moment.)

"You don't look ugly, Misha," he says again, in a voice that's low and on the edge of pleading. "I don't even know where you'd get that idea because you never have, and you definitely don't look not-human. You just look sick… which makes sense because you've _been. sick_. And you know…" Jensen's fingers brush over Misha's hair again, even though it's not in his face. "Maybe I didn't notice all the signs that you needed help, or maybe I didn't know how to help you right before, but… I know now. Sort of. I mean—Meesh, I know, like, absolutely nothing about what you're going through, but I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere. Like, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried, okay? So, talk to me. Tell me what's going on for you and how I can help. Just. Whatever you need me to do, I'll do it. Okay?"

Everything goes kind of fuzzy for a moment as Misha blinks up at Jensen and tries to come up with some response to that—some response that isn't throwing himself at his best friend, kissing the life out of Jensen, and begging the jerk to _please just love me already, love me like I'm in love with you, or at least let me down easily and say we can still be friends_ —As he's staring, something clouds around the corners of Misha's vision and he briefly thinks that he's going to pass out. But, thankfully, he doesn't.

Or maybe not so thankfully, because what he does is even worse: flinging his arms around Jensen's shoulders, jerking himself the rest of the way into Jensen's personal space and flush against Jensen's body, Misha bursts into tears.

 

Misha loses track of how long he keeps up this humiliating display. How many times he bobs his face into and out of the curve of Jensen's neck, starts snuffling and whimpering into Jensen's shoulder, has to pause and gasp for air several times before his breaths actually stick, his whole chest spasming and his lungs flailing around inside him. Even before he starts to calm down, his stomach hurts. Hurts like he's gotten kicked in it over and over, probably by some hulking monstrosity wearing steel-toed boots. Hurts like he's just spent a solid hour purging—maybe even more, definitely long enough for his stomach to feel stomped in on, insistent on its emptiness because it's trying to cave in, period.

Telling himself that this is stupid and ridiculous and melodramatic and _god, Misha, just stop_ doesn't help Misha get what he wants. If anything, it just makes the crying worse. Kicks him on and just keeps kicking him, like all the times he's cried while throwing up weren't even remotely enough—like there's more that's built up inside him than he even knows, at least there has to be because Misha just keeps crying. He hiccups into Jensen's neck. Tries to move, so he won't end up grazing his teeth on Jensen's neck or anything, but he only ends up leaving a puddle of snot on Jensen's shoulder. And Misha doesn't think he has the energy to really care that much or make an attempt at stopping himself. He just needs to get whatever this is out of him.

After some long stretch of sobbing into Jensen's shoulder, Misha finally settles. It takes a few moments and several deep breaths for him to calm himself down properly, but he gets some stillness to hang around, gets his nerves to sit still. And he murmurs against Jensen's neck, so close he can practically taste Jensen's skin, "…you were really worried about me, weren't you?"

Jensen chuckles, but it's forced, and he tightens the hold he has on Misha's waist. "What the fuck is with that past tense," he says and nuzzles at Misha's hair. "Seriously, dumb-ass—what the fuck is with that past tense, Misha? Worried about you, yeah, I have been but… I'm still worried about you, okay? _Duh_."

Furrowing his brow, Misha wriggles under Jensen's hold—it's not tight enough to give him problems, but he does find some degree of struggle in trying to pull back far enough to look up at Jensen, make eye contact. It makes Misha feel sick, making this eye contact—locking his gaze on Jensen's sends a shiver up his spine that makes him want to run for the bathroom and gag on his whole fist, or anything that might make him sick enough to puke up whatever the fuck these feelings inside of him are. They're all messed up and mushed together, and every time Misha thinks he can suss out one of them, ten others rear their heads and remind him that they're there. That they're just as powerful, if not more so, than the other one he thought he's found.

"I just… Jensen, it isn't, and I know this is new for you and—shit, that sounded condescending, didn't it—I didn't mean to, like…" Misha sighs. Allows himself to glance down at Jensen's chest instead of at his eyes, for all Misha forces himself to look back up before he tries to get talking again. "It's not that simple, I mean, I. …I've been sick, though, right? And it's not just 'duh' to me, Jensen. Not after. Not after _how_ I've been sick?" Misha pauses, and expects that Jensen might start talking back, but the pause ends up being more for breath than anything.

Moving independently of Misha's will, entirely beyond his ability to stop, his lips and voice start throwing up an explanation. Start puking it all over Jensen, despite how he didn't ask and probably doesn't want to hear it: "Where I've been… Jensen, this is something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies. Ever. It's like everything's falling apart, all the time, constantly, and like if you can just control this one thing, yourself? Then everything's going to be better. Everything's going to be fine. Except it's not. It never is because the more you do it, the worse it gets and nothing's ever enough… It's like having the most evil little voice in your head, telling you you're worthless, and you're a monster, and no one really loves you because you're not perfect and how can they love you like that…"

Misha sighs. Feels the color ebbing out of his face and, if he can't be sick, then he wants to just… not have to look at Jensen right now. Not have to watch as Jensen's jaw goes slack, as his nostrils flare and his brow knots up to match the horrified spark behind his eyes. "It'll probably start up with all that again soon, actually," Misha says, voice low and every part of him screaming that he needs to shut up. "With the berating me and telling me I can't do this and I'm ruining everything _forever_ and… It's crazy, Jenny, and I know that, and that's _why_ I usually don't talk about it… Not to mention that, like. How the Hell am I supposed to explain that I have this extra, overactive conscience and all it ever tells me us what a waste I am, and how nobody cares, nobody would notice or object to anything it wants me to do because I suck so much."

Jensen blinks down at Misha for a moment before yanking him back into the hug, tighter than he has all night (tight enough that Misha has no real room to move, has trouble trying to hug Jensen back), and murmuring that if Misha ever says he sucks again, Jensen's going to smack him upside the fucking head, in the most loving way possible. For a long, silent moment, he just holds Misha. "Well, if it has something to say about anything," he mutters, after a while, "then tell it to fuck off for me. Because you're not worthless. And you're not a waste. And fuck your evil conscience gnome-thing, because Vicki cares. And Mark cares. And I care."

"If you care so much, can you do me a favor?" (True to his word, Jensen agrees to this, and Misha snuggles as closer as he can when there's not all that much space left.) Misha means to ask if he's been imagining things this whole time between them, if normal people cuddle like this with their completely platonic best friends, or if Jensen could handle Misha being in love with him (regardless of whether or not he reciprocates the sentiment—all Misha needs is for Jensen to accept it), or if any vaguely romantic tension has just been in his head. Misha means to say a lot of things, but they all come out as: "Tell me something happy? Please?"

Jensen has to think about that for a moment, but eventually, he says, "Well, there's this guy—I mean… I was trying to eat better and I was working out with Dany anyway, and it kind of sucks, but we really got into it because… Well, like I said? Because there's this guy. And we haven't really talked that much, I guess—like, we talked for a _minute_ , in line for _coffee_ … But I keep seeing him around a lot, and I wanna get to know him? Maybe ask him out?"

"Oh," Misha says, just glad that Jensen can't see him right now, see his eyes glaze over as he mechanically asks about this mystery guy that Jensen's taken with. And more than anything else about this conversation, that revelation makes his stomach try to plummet out of him and, when it can't escape, it wants to rush up his throat. He doesn't care what he has to do, as long as it means he doesn't have to feel any of this… whatever the Hell it is. Jealousy, a little bit—it definitely flares up in his chest, pricks along the back of his neck.

And loneliness, feeling so small and lost and isolated, even when he's wrapped up in Jensen's arm, curled up against Jensen's chest. And regret, because Jensen's been single since January, and Misha's been single since May, and if he'd just not done this to himself, then maybe, Misha could've had a chance or a reason to tell Jensen how he feels. And more regret—an entirely different note of it—because not only was he stupid enough to think that, maybe, there was anything going on here beyond the surface level of _Jensen and Misha Are Each Other's Best Friend_ , but Misha wanted to risk losing that over some misbegotten crush or… whatever the Hell he thinks he has on Jensen.

And there's something else there, too. Something that rears its head while Jensen wraps up his little tale of some enormously tall, kind of hyperactive, long-haired freshman named Jared Padalecki, who wants to be a bio-chem major and still, somehow, wound up in Dr. Davidson's first-year studies in drawing, which is why Jensen gets to see him, because working as Davidson's assistant means making copies, bringing him coffee, and occasionally covering some sessions of his class—and when this feeling first crops up, it scares Misha. Before he even realizes what it is, pinpoints exactly why (out of nowhere) his chest feels so much warmer, so much lighter, it all terrifies him—that he can feel so good when he's supposed to be so fucked up right now—and then it clicks, what he's feeling.

Freedom. A selfish sort of it, he guesses, but all things considered, it's probably some necessary selfishness. And as he sighs, slumps against Jensen and tries to doze off, he's thinking, _at least I don't have to feel like I'm only getting better for my boyfriend. I can get healthy for me, then ask Kat out, and you can have your enormous Polish hippie guy. And everyone can just be happy with getting what they need, or some fucking platitude like that._

 

"Hey, Meesh?" he prods after a run of silence—one that stretches on long enough for most of Misha's overactive conscience to have shut up. He's gentle in asking it, and it still comes with Jensen rubbing little circles at the base of Misha's spine—but the endgame is still rousing Misha out of the half-sleep that he's started drifting into.

Rather than talking, Misha just makes a little noise out of the back of his throat and nuzzles against Jensen's neck.

Jensen sighs into Misha's hair. "I was gonna ask about getting a new scale, like, for me to use. And if that'd trigger you or anything. But I don't wanna risk that, and I don't wanna ask you to have to deal with that, so… I'm just gonna borrow Dany's at her place, I guess, it's just that… I don't need anything from you, except for this one thing. So… please?"

"I can't agree to anything if you don't tell me what the terms are, dipshit," Misha mumbles against Jensen's skin, nestling around in this (completely platonic because fuck Misha's life, that's why) embrace, trying to get somewhere he can comfortably sleep again. "Get on with it or let me get some rest, Jenny."

"Just…" Jensen sighs. Goes quiet—the sort of quiet that looms like a coming storm, because Jensen has to mull over his choice of words—he has to actually think about them all until he finally asks: "And I don't want you to think I'm trying to control you or anything—I'm not trying to come off like that, I'm _so sorry_ if that's what I'm doing, but just… With how out of it you've been? I'm sort of guessing that you're not doing so well, health-wise, and… This is just like cuddling a porcelain doll or an ice sculpture and I'm so scared I'll hurt you or something I don't _like_ feeling like that Misha I really fucking don't—"

The words start charging out of his mouth, full-throttle, and only stop when Jensen stumbles. Runs out of air. Has to gasp for breath and tightens his hold on Misha again ( _it's probably just a reflex, Misha, stop getting your fucking hopes up_ )—and before Misha can try to offer Jensen any comfort, he sighs. Says, without adornment: "Whatever's going on inside your head, whatever you think you need to do, Meesh… please don't get this skinny again? Please?"

Misha considers this a moment—his conscience, or whatever the fuck it is, growls at him for even thinking that it's a good idea—but as he curls back into Jensen's neck, he nods. As he closes his eyes, he promises that he won't. "'m gonna work on this and get it right, Jenny. I promise."

 

It's a long, hard road after that. But Misha does get better—slowly, yeah, but it happens, kind of. He gets used to people watching him eat. Gets used to sharing several small meals with Jensen, or Mark, or Vicki. Gets use to sharing his workout sessions with Jensen, or with Matt, or with Danneel and Sandy, all of whom won't let Misha overwork himself, go for longer than an hour, or get anywhere near the scale in the gym. Gets used to knowing that he's gaining weight, just not how much or how quickly, only that he feels kind of better, he guesses, if mostly in the way that means he won't pass out or something.

Misha gets used to all of it, and by the time he asks Kat out, he might not be at his healthiest weight ever (he's still a bit lower than everyone not named Misha seems to think is okay), but he can fake his way through a meal without looking like too much of a freak. He can mostly get through it without thinking that he should've suggested something other than Italian, because there's no way he should be eating all of the calories in the chicken marsala.

He gets used to the nagging suspicion that he's not really getting better, that maybe he's faking it well enough and controlling the presentation, how the symptoms look to an outside eye, but that, really, he's just finding a new addiction. That all he's doing is making himself look more normal than he is.

By the time he finally meets Jared, Misha not only makes dinner for Jensen and his new boyfriend, but ignores the fact that it's lasagna and stomachs a healthy portion of it himself. Sits at the table with them while he does so, which should be the worst, most awkward, terrible thing ever, not least because Jensen's still watching Misha eat, still making sure he does so—but it's not so bad. It could be worse, at any rate, and they have an excuse for all the awkwardness and forced conversation. _I just want to make sure my best friend and my boyfriend can deal with each other and not hate it, since they're gonna have to get used to having the other one around_ —it's a stroke of genius on Jensen's part.

It might not cover all the discomfort and lack of social graces on Misha's part—aside from the distraction of wanting to impress this loud, enormous freshman Jensen likes so much, Misha can't stop staring while Jared eats—but at least Jared comes out of it grinning, and announcing that Misha's pretty cool, which is awesome but unexpected, not because Jared thinks Misha seemed like a dick or anything, but well, he's seen Misha around campus a lot, just never talking to anybody and always looking kinda serious. At least he claps Misha on the shoulder and doesn't notice (or maybe just doesn't say anything about) the prominence of Misha's shoulder-blades.

At least Jared seems to come out of that first meeting without a fucking clue, and at least, even as they get to know each other better, Jared never seems to get one. He thinks Misha's (mostly) normal (for some debatable value of that word). He has no idea that Misha's ever been sick. And that's supposed to be a good thing or something. It probably means that Misha's better, at least. And that he can stop worrying so much—not that he does. Not even when he gets confirmation that, no, really, his weight's doing fine.

About two weeks after meeting Jared for the first time, Misha finally gets to weigh in for the first time in ages. He sneaks away from Matt after a session at the gym—his second one today, because he's noticed that Matt has the most problems communicating with everyone else and none whatsoever about taking Misha's word for it when he says that he's not worked out, even though he met Danneel for an hour before their morning classes. Fortunately for Misha, Matt also has a shit attention span, so while he gets distracted, talking to Loud Obnoxious Chad (who's some friend of Jared's, so Misha has to pretend he doesn't hate the dick, even though he wishes Chad would fall off a cliff and let Jared make some better friends), Misha walks off without a word. Gets on the scale and holds his breath.

Sighs in relief when the green numbers flash back at him, _160_ —and that feeling lasts until he's back at Matt's side, back to hearing him and Chad going on about… something inane involving baseball, from the sound of it. Misha can only think that now, he has to change his focus entirely, work on maintaining his weight instead of gaining or losing it—because either of those would make it pretty clear that, despite appearances, despite putting on the twenty pounds he probably shouldn't have lost in the first place, and despite everything he says, maybe he's not better. Maybe he's still obsessed.

Maybe Richard was right all along; maybe Misha's more fucked up than any of them reckoned for and maybe he just hides it well.

But what's important is that nobody notices. Not even Vicki and Jensen. Not even Shepp, who's been the most scrutinizing set of eyes throughout this entire fucked up process. They all just talk about how glad they are that Misha's getting better, and since he's not exactly known for being the best judge of himself, he takes their word it. He's getting better because they said so. Because he seems so stable and so okay that even Vicki seems to think it's fine when, come July, Misha really wants to have access to a scale that isn't at the gym or Jeff's place, as long as he promises to be mindful of his obsessive tendencies.

He's fine. Everything's fine. For real, this time.

 

On Monday morning, Misha wakes up and hates himself all over again.

His head pounds. His stomach churns and the thought of food makes him want to puke. When he wanders out of his room and smells the leftover pizza Jensen's zapping in the microwave, Misha _does_ puke—just barrels into the bathroom and kicks the door shut behind himself, falls to his knees and grips onto the, thanks his lucky stars that he never owned up to the intentional vomiting. He couldn't deal with having to get fussed over and own up to all the shit going on in his head right now all because he's a fucking dumb-ass, who spent his weekend getting shit-faced and who's getting his comeuppance for it.

Not that this takes the edge off of anything. Not that it really makes his stomach and his throat feel less victimized by these gastric pyrotechnics. Not that it makes Misha stop wishing he would've just made himself sick up because at least, then, he'd have control over the situation, he'd get to feel like he got something productive out of feeling like a hot slice of microwaved death. All it does is ease his mind the slightest bit. Knowing that Jensen's not going to get hip to the whatever the fuck is wrong with him—the not-officially-a-relapse—barely even manages to accomplish that for Misha.

Because he knows what those kind of thought patterns mean, he knows where they're bound to lead, and even with his chest heaving from the force of upchucking like _The Exorcist_ , even with his cheek pressed down against the freezing ceramic of the toilet seat, Misha catches himself thinking that it might not be all that bad. At least making himself sick helped him get skinny before—and okay, fine, disordered thinking or whatever, maybe that's just because he blatantly overdid it instead of stopping when he got to an acceptable weight. (Except it's not that simple. Except that he _knows_ it's not that simple. He remembers only seeing fat when there's photo evidence of how sickly he looked. He knows what any kind of baiting his not-a-goddamn-eating-disorder will do to him.)

Besides—and of more immediate relevance—his "hair of the dog" trick's decided to bite him in the fucking ass—the way that that trick always does.

And his over-complacency follows suit when Misha wobbles to his feet and hazards to step on the scale. The red digital letters and the tinny, automated voice both inform him that he's up to one-ninety-two, he's gained four pounds since he last came to visit, and that, for his height, he's overweight. As though he really needed to be told.

He knows not to start obsessing—he knows that obsessing is only going to make things get so much worse, so much faster—but Misha finds himself doing it as he sleepwalks his way through the call to Mark, then the follow-ups to Doctor Edlund and their other coworker, Andie. There's no way he's going into work today, not when it'd mean trying to suffer through a bunch of freshmen making bad jokes about "Greek love" on top of having a hangover—Misha's dreaded having to deal with that enough, never mind that he can't handle it while he feels like he'll sick up again, while his head's pounding, spinning, successfully making him regret spending his weekend drunk.

And still can't make him feel anything bad about why he did it. Even with his current headache and its insistence upon itself, even flopping on the sofa with his two slices of dry, whole wheat toast—about the only thing in the apartment that Misha thinks might sit well in his stomach—Misha finds himself counting off the calories and nutritional facts, thinking that he'll need to get over himself and go out for a run unless he _wants_ his toast to go right to his expanding ass. Even when Jensen wanders out of his room—even when he points out that Misha's going to be late for work if he just keeps sitting there—Misha finds it difficult to do anything but fixate on his weight, on how it's probably a miracle that Jensen's the bigger of the two of them…

It's only by some miracle that he manages to get around a groan—around the bone-twisting shiver that rockets through him at just the _thought_ of having to work out today—and it's a further miracle that Misha manages to say, "I'm not going into work, Jenny. Took a sick day."

"But you're _you_ ," Jensen says, blinking like Misha just sprouted a second head, frowning deeply, brow knotting up (and Misha can't tell if it's in concern, confusion, or both). "Meesh, work with me here, because I'm… Vicki and I've had to sit on you to keep you from going to class when you had the flu, so sorry if I'm kinda lost here?"

Misha shrugs. Sighs. Leans back against the sofa and tries to get more comfortable, since he'll probably be stuck here all fucking day. Since his body's so opposed to doing anything. "Yeah, well… Maybe I learned something from that. Or maybe I'm just too sick do actually bother with that whole kind of mess right now. Or with you talking so _loudly_ —"

"Which is what happens when you don't listen to me about the booze." Jensen arches an eyebrow down at Misha; Misha blinks up at him, going for some sort of passively unimpressed look but not caring whether or not he succeeds. "Y'know. Not like you're not allowed to drink or anything, or drink a _lot_ , if you want to—I guess I'm just having some trouble here because it's pretty out-of-character for—"

"Seriously, jack-ass, haven't you ever heard of an inside voice?" _Or about how some things don't need to be questioned, they just need to get dropped and left the fuck alone?_

"Haven't you ever heard about best friends giving a shit about each other?" Jensen's sigh isn't hot or exasperated or even tired—it's just long, groaning, heavy. _Concerned_ , more than anything else. "I'm not trying to push you too hard or anything—I mean, you haven't had the best run of weeks, that's fine, I'm trying to respect that… But you can't just tell me I can't help and expect me to take it. Doesn't work that way, Meesh."

"Well, I haven't tried to tell you that," Misha mumbled, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Not like I'd waste the effort, since I _know_ you'd never just lie down for that—"

"Damn straight I wouldn't—so I'm trying to understand, I guess? I'm trying to help out. Do whatever I can to make things suck less… And I'm sort of getting hung up here on, like, why my normally pretty responsible best friend decided to drink like a fish? And why he did that and didn't try too hard to do any kind of countermeasures—use any kind of countermeasures, I mean—so, like… He wouldn't be able to… Why'd you spend the whole weekend drinking, anyway, you know?"

For all he closes his eyes (can't look at Jensen while admitting this), Misha's answer is quite simple. Only two words and a sigh: "Richard stuff."

Jensen goes quiet for a moment, and the only thing he says is, "Oh. …Okay. …Sit tight, I'll be right back—" He huffs. Goes quiet again. And picks up with saying, "Hey, Lauren? Yeah, okay, I know this is short notice, but… d'you think you could cover my section of class today? …No, I'm fine, it's nothing about me, it's just—call it a personal favor, okay? …So what can I _give you_ to make covering my section something you don't mind doing? …Well, I didn't bake those cookies but I can look into—"

"Jensen," Misha sighs, watching him set down his messenger bag and stomp off back to his bedroom, still babbling at his coworker and trying to sort out terms. When he comes back in his pajamas, Misha tries to carry on, says, "Oh for fuck's sake, Jensen—go to work, I can handle this just—I'm not a fucking porcelain doll, Ackles—you don't have to do this, too…"

Heaving a pretty heavy sigh of his own, Jensen scoffs, jostles all the sofa cushions as he flops down next to Misha. Doesn't say anything until he's mussed up Misha's bed-head and thrown an arm around his shoulders. "Yeah, like I don't know what, 'Richard stuff' is code for," he says simply, the same way he'd say that the sky is blue and that Batman has dead parents. "And like I'm gonna leave you here to deal with it alone, Meesh."

Misha tries to scoff right back at that, but it comes out sounding like a cough, more than anything. "You know, you really deserve a best friend who's not such a dick to you, right?"

"Eh, maybe." Jensen smiles, just a warm, hopeful twitch of the lips, and knowing him, he has no damn idea how gorgeous he looks. "But I've got it on good authority that you're not as much of a dick as you like to think, and besides, nice, normal people are kinda boring. Anyway, I wouldn't get it in my head to try and make them garden omelets or those low-carb pancake abominations, if they wanted them…?"

_Oh God, seriously? No, Jensen. No. I'm getting fat enough already without putting pancakes in there too… I might not be sick anymore—and, I mean, how could I be, when I let you people get my weight back up somewhere healthier—why would I do that if I'm supposed to be so sick… But not being sick anymore just. It doesn't mean I can't be concerned about my weight or the control, how I'm supposed to be in control of that. It doesn't mean I can't care about not getting fat like pancakes would make me_ —Misha just shakes his head and drops it onto Jensen's shoulder. Slumps into him, because he's warmer and more comfortable to lean on than the sofa, and points out (without even lying too terribly much) that he's not feeling well enough for pancakes. Nausea. Hangover symptoms.

"Besides," he says, getting comfortable enough on Jensen's shoulder to yawn, consider taking a nap. "Jenny, much as I appreciate the thought, you're a menace to all cookware. And I don't trust you with any potential fire-starting things. And if you burn down my kitchen, I'm gonna have to murder you in your sleep. And I'm too pretty to go to prison, so, really? We're probably better off if you just leave it."


End file.
